As good, and frightening, attack as has ever been assembled, and he battled and bested them for 452 minutes, not for a draw, but to set up a win. Without it, England would have sunk without trace. It was instrumental in England beating West Indies in a home Test for the first time in 22 years, from which they went on to avoid defeat in a series against that opposition for the first time in eight attempts. Facing England was a formidable bowling attack. In all the mire of Test match statistics, we forget that, given the various forms of the game played at the top level now, Gooch is the most prolific batsman of all time: 67,057 runs and 172 centuries, as any bowler will tell you, is an awful lot to concede.
Then there is the antithesis, the stonewall, in defiance, where occupation of the crease supersedes run scoring as an option: game savers.Gooch did not have a game to save, though, but one to win.
James Taylor is a promising young man, learning the trade, and there was Graham Gooch alongside him, dropping balls so that he could drive. And the opponents: the remorseless, accurate Ambrose. He was a giant of a batsman and 20 years ago on Thursday he completed a giant of an innings, an effort so monumental that it deserves to be ranked not just as the finest innings ever played by an England captain, or even the finest by an England batsman, but perhaps one of the truly great innings of all time. Even on a pitch like that, if you can stay there for a session, things don't see quite so bad.
With him for the new ball was Patrick Patterson, a shuffling run and muscular, inelegant action but uncompromisingly rapid: only once in his cricket life has Gooch ever feared for his personal safety and that came during a spell from Patterson one day on an uneven green Sabina Park flier.
The ball swung and seamed. Runs obviously do, but, beyond that, circumstance, conditions, opposition, courage, technique and influence on the outcome of a match. Circumstances, conditions, match situation, quality of opposition, courage, skill, influence on the match result? Abhishek Mukherjee looks back one of the greatest Test innings of all time.
The latest offers and discount codes from popular brands on Telegraph Voucher Codes Only one other England batman, Robin Smith, reached a half-century in either innings; only two players, the debutant Mark Ramprakash and Derek Pringle, made double figures in both innings. "What makes this innings so extra special, though, was the balance between defence and attack. When you got hit in the ribs by Courtney, batsmen would say, the ball seemed to stick on the body longer than with other bowlers.
It was humid, gloomy, there were frequent interruptions for rain. The 27 apiece made by Ramprakash and Pringle in that second innings were the second-highest scores, helping Gooch add 78 and 98 for the fourth and seventh wickets respectively. Every loose delivery, the few that came his way, he dispatched. Gooch is the old dog with nine tails now, England's batting coach, still involved, still wanting to play every delivery himself, still talking good pragmatic sense when we sometimes share a few beers on the Suffolk coast. A masterpiece.We rely on advertising to help fund our award-winning journalism.We urge you to turn off your ad blocker for The Telegraph website so that you can continue to access our quality content in the future.
Photograph: David Munden/Popperfoto/Getty Imagesou can see the nets on the Nursery ground from the area at the back of the media centre at Lord's, and the other day I spent 10 minutes watching a young batsman being given a tutorial by the master. What makes a great innings? The ball gets older and often bowlers get frustrated because they think they should be bowling a side out. It was sweater weather and there was rain about, enough to cause breaks in play, disturbing concentration and consistently tickling up the pitch that, under a blanket of cloud that hung low, was at its most capricious: the light was never more than adequate. "All I could do," Gooch has said, "was to fight every ball and hope that runs would come from somewhere. On June 9, 1991 Graham Gooch carried his bat with 154 against the West Indies at Headingley. Only two other England batsmen reached double figures as Gooch, their captain, marshalled them to a second innings 252. Ramprakash and Pringle lent him dedicated support. What constitutes such? The expertise and slipperiness of Marshall. The raw hatred of Patterson. The bounce and cut of Walsh. Next was Courtney Walsh, tall once more, wide of the crease and angling the ball in to the body, only for the occasional one to hold up like a leg-cutter. England had not won a home Test for 22 years against West Indies. He has always stressed that even in defence it is possible to have positive intent, never losing sight of the attacking possibility.
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