JONATHAN TROTT, who qualifies for England at the end of this season, is timing the approach to his eligibility to near-perfection. The 25-year old from Cape Town, who once represented South Africa Under-19, played another fine innings yesterday to record a third hundred of the season in the Liverpool Victoria Championship.

In this sort of form, he will be hard to leave out of next winter’s National Academy intake and England A tour.

Trott already has 588 championship runs to his name this campaign at an average of 84. His great strength is that he never really looks like getting out once he is “in”.

He can, however, be an uncertain starter, but there is enough authority about him at the crease, not to mention a full range of strokes, to suggest that he could make the grade at international level. Graham Burgess, the umpire, who has seen several of his ten first-class hundreds, believes he is the best young middle-order player in the country.

Although the morning session was lost to rain, Warwickshire were still under pressure when they resumed at 98 for three, a long way from their follow-on target of 371. Trott, 36 overnight, quickly reached his fifty in 53 balls, and continued to play with complete conviction on a superb pitch. Particularly strong on the legside, he also cut and drove authoritatively. Against spin, he used his feet well.

Continuing his fluent rate of scoring, Trott cantered to his hundred off 120 balls, dominating a fourth-wicket partnership of 181 in 45 overs with Alex Loudon that should maintain Warwickshire’s 23-year unbeaten championship record at Lord’s.

Although he received just over half the strike in their stand, Loudon’s contribution was restricted to 63. His was a different innings, a solid anchor-type role that was valuable in the circumstances.

Blessed with a tight defence, not to mention a regal on-drive that he unfurled several times here, Loudon was eventually prised out by a peach of a delivery from Chris Silverwood that cut back at pace and uprooted his middle stump.

Last year in this corresponding fixture, the former Durham University captain would surely have scored a maiden championship hundred had Warwickshire not reached their victory target of 382. He was left stranded on 95, and nearly ten months later, he is still awaiting that tantalising milestone. This was his fifteenth championship fifty.

Soon after Jim Troughton had lashed a long-hop straight to the fielder on the short point boundary under the Grandstand, Trott was sixth out, caught at mid-wicket. His 139 had occupied 194 balls, 15 of which he struck for four. The follow-on target was still 90 runs away, but Dougie Brown and Daniel Vettori knocked off 62 of them before the New Zealander unwisely tried to pull the second new ball.

Without some sort of contrivance today, a result looks impossible on this pitch but Middlesex know they cannot afford to set a target.