Will Ed Cowan be in the firing line come Trent Bridge?

Can I just say that I like Ed Cowan as a person?

Anyone who is described in the Sydney Morning Herald as a bloke who “grows his own vegetables, immerses himself in novels, and appreciates modern art and loves music” is someone I would love to have a chat with.

Even his quirky Twitter page – assuming it is him – although with 30,000 followers unless you are a parody of the legendary Ritchie Benaud you would be doing well to get that many under such pretences – says he “likes to eat mangoes in the shower”.

His farewell to Ricky Ponting published in The Australian last year was one of the most perceptive pieces of journalism I have read.

Not least because it came from someone who had, at times, stood at the other end to Punter in the unforgiving maelstrom of Test cricket.

Searching and analytical, insightful, observant, sharp and generous – it is the standard that all players past and current undertaking written media activities should aspire to.

I for one will devour anything and everything that Cowan writes in the future.

He also deserves to be admired as student of the game, and has sought out unusual avenues in his quest for a sport he so obviously loves.

In 2010, he played club cricket in Holland. He also had a one-day knock for Scotland, and was even selected for the British Universities side when an exchange student to Oxford Brookes University in 2003, scoring an unbeaten 137 against Zimbabwe.

And yet. As the man himself knows only too well having written about it with candour in his acutely observed diary of a season, ‘In The Firing Line’, whilst cricket is about technique, temperament, willingness to compete, courage and skill – it is also about form.

He was bowled by two England internationals in his most recent game first-class game for Notts vs Surrey at Trent Bridge last week.

Albeit by ones who play intermittently for the ODI team, and who, although are on the radar of the ECB are nowhere near being selected for the forthcoming Ashes.

Stuart Meaker, who’s England aspirations have been hit by a thigh injury, accounted for Cowan via an inside edge in the first innings, while the preternaturally inconsistent Jade Dernbach, slower ball variants to the nth degree, tattoos and all got him in the second.

His first class county scores for Nottinghamshire this season have been 15, 20, 40, 35, 59, 15*, 61 and 1 (Chris Rogers hit 50 and 51* in the same game), giving an underwhelming average of 35.

Nowhere near Chris Rogers season average. Or Sam Robson’s for that matter.

In mitigating circumstances the recent Trent Bridge wicket could be described as bowler friendly, with a shading of grass and a moisture, but also one with good pace and bounce that gloomy overhead conditions could influence which made it doubly difficult for Cowan.

As a painfully frank Cowan writes in his diary of a season, as a batsman “preservation can be your first instinct. Sometimes you get yourself into a hole and feel both the change room pressure and scoreboard pressure building, only to play a rash shot and compound the problem by losing a wicket”.

Unfortunately, the forthcoming Ashes summer is not a time for allowances, as surely the pitch will offer more of the same for the first Ashes Test there on 10 July.

Only this time with a full house of 17,500 baying Englishmen give or take a yellow-clad supporter from Australia.

As all Aussies and Englishmen know there are no neutrals at the first Ashes Test of a summer.

Speaking of the England team, judging by the two Test match-up against New Zealand it appears that not only are Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad (who has taken McCullum’s wicket four times in two tests as the Kiwi captain eked out a total of 31 runs in the series) now firing, but crucially – judging by their bowling against NZ at Headingley – so are Graeme Swann and Stephen Finn.

Ominously Swann, his elbow showing no effects from his recent op to remove floating bone from the joint, utilised the footmarks made by the creditable efforts of Kiwi left armers Trent Boult and Tim Southee to snaffle ten wickets in the match.

Food for thought with Mitchell Starc as leader of the Aussie pack in July.

It was no mean feat either, at the invariably fast track of Leeds.

The weather took a large chunk out of the game, Alastair Cook was overly cautious in declaring – even if he looked imperious in notching his fourth fast Test ton and his 25th in all – but Swann was still the first slow armer to take ten in a Test in Yorkshire since ‘Deadly’ Derek Underwood way back in 1972.

Steven Finn seems to have put issue of kneeing the stumps behind him, reverting back to his more natural long run and looking far more aggressive.

He is one of those players who always takes wickets as we saw in the 2010/11 Ashes, but he does has a tendency to leak runs.

At Leeds he was not only parsimonious but accurate with his hostility at least in the first innings.

It was also unfair of some commentators to mention tongue firmly in cheek that the only reason he was so intimidating was because Watford FC lost at Wembley in the Championship promotion play-off to Crystal Palace yesterday, thus denying his beloved Hornets a Premier League place.

When Finn is on first innings form, woe betide any batsman with limited or timid footwork. Which brings us back to Cowan.

As Cowan so eloquently phrased it in his book regarding losing his wicket cheaply, “I am angry because I am not learning – making the same mistakes over and over. I am putting so much effort into being better and yet here I am, having let myself down again.”

As a man, Ed is that rare breed, a clever, but decent and affable bloke. As a current top class cricketer who writes, the likeable and brutally honest Cowan is peerless.

As a Test batsman no-one has put more thought and application into his batting than the man from Paddo.

Yet as an Aussie opener about to face an England bowling attack – that has finally clicked as a unit after playing itself into a portentous run of form – with six weeks to go until that first ball is bowled at his home ground of Trent Bridge, I still have reservations.

Sorry Ed, but even as a Pom I won’t admire you any less if you prove me wrong.