RUN(NING) MACHINE

It is 50 years since the Essex man who has made more runs in professional cricket than anyone else made his Test debut.

Goochie photographed by Derek Pringle

This photograph of Graham Gooch was taken in the dressing-room of what was then called the Foster’s Kennington Oval during a County Championship match in 1993. He was two months shy of his 40th birthday.

Goochie must be out as he’s wearing his Essex tracksuit which means he’s either preparing to go for a run or has just been on one. As a cricketer he saw life in terms of debit and credit. You see Goochie’s always liked his food and drink, especially the fattening stuff like beer and cake, but they had to be earned. So one jam doughnut equalled a five-mile run or a five-mile run equalled a jam doughnut. It’s just how he thought.

He also believed training hard prepared him well for the nuts and bolts of the job which was scoring runs. Ironic, then, that his Test career, which began at Edgbaston against Australia in 1975, should begin with a pair of blobs.

It is 50 years since that inauspicious debut failed to signpost one of the great cricketing careers. He is a live guest in the virtual cricket club next Thursday. (Join the club and ask him a question HERE.) He will remember that conditions at Edgbaston that day were tricky. Covered pitches were not yet mandatory in England and rain had soaked the playing surface, somewhat disastrously given England had put Australia in to bat first on a dry pitch and they'd made 359.

Against a pace attack comprising Dennis Lillee, Jeff Thomson and Max Walker, the entire team struggled as balls gripped, moved and leapt in unpredictable ways. Dickie Bird was one of the match umpires and reckons John Edrich’s 34 off 123 balls was the greatest Test innings he saw when standing as an umpire.

Even allowing for Dickie’s eccentricities it shows how difficult putting bat to ball must have been. Indeed, only three other batters made it to double figures in England’s first innings (the best of them making 14), which only goes to show the level of jeopardy involved.

Goochie’s first duck saw him caught down the leg-side off Walker, a giant, moustachioed, whirlygig of a pace bowler. Nobody plans to dismiss batters that way unless they are David Gower, so it was something of a strangle for which Gooch can consider himself unlucky. Then, in the 2nd innings, duck number two came following a snorter from Thommo; England having followed-on on a pitch still playing tricks from the soaking it got on day two.

Defeat did not see Goochie dropped, that happened after the next Test at Lord’s where he made six and 31. But it did see a change of England captain, Mike Denness making way for Tony Greig. Goochie only played that one Test under Greig’s captaincy so it’s probably safe to say the latter was never a role model when Goochie became captain of Essex, then England in the following decade.

Due to Goochie’s zeal over physical fitness, pre-season training at Essex certainly got tougher when he assumed the captaincy in 1986, to the point where a journalist asked Ray East, the team’s left-arm spinner and its resident joker “if Essex were the fittest team in the country?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Easty, “but if we ever come across someone who can hit the ball three miles we’ll be the best team at getting it back.”

Some in the England set-up, like David Gower and Ian Botham, saw Gooch’s attitude towards what they called ‘physical jerks’ as overly puritanical. It sometimes led to clashes and hissy fits, including Gower being dropped for England’s 1992/93 tour to India. The move caused furore with MCC holding special meetings in protest of Gower’s treatment even though the logic of Goochie’s argument was hard to dispute.

“When Ian and David were captains of England I prepared as they wanted,” said Gooch. “Now I’m captain and I want them to practise my way they don’t want to do it.”

For me, Goochie was the greatest England batter of his era. Nobody gave as equally to county and country as him. Gower may have been more elegant and Allan Lamb may have scored more Test hundreds against the mighty West Indies, but overall Goochie excelled more regularly than either.

He was certainly the main reason, along with left-arm swing bowler John Lever, for Essex’s many successes in the 15 years between 1978-93, a period that saw the club win six County Championships; three Sunday League titles; one NatWest Trophy; one Benson and Hedges Cup; and one Refuge Assurance Cup, though nobody can remember what that last one was about.

His time as England captain, although modest in terms of results (W10, L12, D12 from 34 Tests in charge), did usher in coach culture in its attempts to drag the national team towards greater professionalism. Of course that culture has grown out of control now with England utilising as many track-suited operatives as players (maybe more).

Such a surfeit of support staff breeds a ‘neediness’ in players that cannot be good for them, an unintended consequence that Goochie, the least needy player I ever played with, could never have anticipated when he pulled on that tracksuit at the Oval all those years ago.

GRAHAM GOOCH is a live guest in the virtual cricket club which raises money for the Professional Cricketer’s Trust on Thursday Jan 23rd at 8pm. Join us HERE