Happy Birthday, Graham Gooch: Retracing Former England Skipper’s Cricket Career
As former England captain Graham Gooch celebrates his 68th birthday; here we take a look at his illustrative career.
Graham Gooch is the most celebrated English cricketer. He is also England’s most prolific run-getter of all time with 67,057 runs in his kitty from first-class and List A cricket combined. He is England’s second-highest run-scorer in Test cricket with 8900 runs in 118 games with the help of 20 hundreds, 46 fifties and two double centuries. He is only behind former England skipper Alastair Nathan Cook, who has amassed 12472 runs from 161 games in Test cricket.
Gooch also has struck more than 100 first-class centuries and picked over 200 wickets. In short, Gooch was a complete cricketer, especially when it comes to domestic cricket. Gooch made his Test debut against England’s bitter rival Australia in 1975 in the most bizarre fashion as he recorded two ducks in the match and was dropped from the English side after another unimpressive performance.
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After getting axed from the national side, Gooch returned to domestic cricket and worked on his flaws and three years later, he was recalled to England team. After that, he never looked back and soon became England’s batting mainstay. In 1980, he was also named Wisden Cricketer of the Year for his impressive performance.
Gooch was appointed England skipper in 1988 by replacing Chris Cowdrey.
Gooch’s first captaincy stint was short and he had a mixed result. He started his reign as captain with a loss against West Indies and followed it up with a win against Sri Lanka. Later, after Gooch was not able to tour India as the GOI refused to give him a visa due to his links with South Africa, he was replaced by Gower as the captain.
However, he was renamed England skipper in 1989 after the English team’s embarrassing 0-4 Ashes loss to Australia. He also led England in the 1992 World Cup, where they finished as runner-up. He stepped down from England’s captaincy in 1993 after their disappointing performance in Ashes. Two years later, he announced his retirement as England’s then highest run-getter.
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