Cricket / Fourth Test:: Strong on sweat, short on style: Martin Johnson sums up the Gooch era that went overboard on work ethic

GRAHAM GOOCH has never been an emotional man (a bashful doff of the helmet was the best he could manage after passing 300 in a Test match) but he was never closer to a lump in the throat than when he walked out to a standing ovation for his final innings as England captain at Headingley on Sunday. At that moment he would have realised that the nation has even forgiven him for getting rid of David Gower.

Unlike Gower, Gooch is not looked upon as a natural treasure, and he will be remembered with admiration rather than affection. It was Geoffrey Moorhouse who first likened him to a chisel-jawed defender at Rorke's Drift, but it is a peculiarity of the English that their real affection is reserved for the flawed jewel rather than the impenetrable rock.

Even the opposition marvelled when Gower, with a suspicion that he had prepared for his innings with a glass of Bollinger and half an hour in the hammock, creamed another four through the covers, but they knew who they would rather not be bowling to. And it wasn't Gower.

Gooch (now within 129 runs of Gower's English Test record) is more entitled than most to put his feet up now and again, but he still flogs his ageing body around pavements first thing in the morning, and he is never easily prised from the practice net.

Gooch has been playing Test cricket since 1975, when he began his career with 0 and 0 against Ian Chappell's Australians, and it was only when he inherited the England captaincy that he transformed a moderate Test record into an imposing one. As a private, Gooch's average is in the 30s. As an officer, it is just under 60.

He did not particularly want the job - having it thrust upon him by Micky Stewart in 1988. As Gooch was still on the Indian blacklist after his part in the 1981 South African Breweries tour (for which he served a three-year ban) that winter's tour never took place, and Stewart's presentation of Gooch as a fait accompli led to the TCCB empowering itself with the veto clause that latterly denied Mike Gatting the job, and drove him off to South Africa.

However, Gooch enjoyed his first two matches in charge (against the West Indies and Sri Lanka) so much that he was more than a touch miffed when Ted Dexter and Stewart did not even offer him an interview when they turned to Gower after the cancelled Indian tour. Gower, of course, went down with England's 1989 version of the Titanic, and Gooch has been back in charge, until yesterday, ever since.

To begin with, Gooch's style of captaincy - re-stocking Gower's wine cellar with tubs of elbow grease - was precisely what was required, and but for a combination of rain and a shady manipulation of the over-rate from the West Indians in Trinidad, plus a mind-bogglingly stupid itinerary, Gooch's first overseas tour might have ended with a remarkable victory in the Caribbean rather than narrow defeat.

However, his own laudable instincts of sweat and hard work ultimately became too one-dimensional in a game that has always demanded charm, style and a certain amount of fun allied to hard-nosed professionalism. On the last tour to Australia, where the opportunities for naughty boys at the back of the class are more or less endless, he lost the balance between the work and play ethics. Then there was India last winter. No other tour places such a high premium on rest and relaxation, but here again England (until Gooch himself was finally too knackered to resist) approached it like a gravediggers' convention.

Gooch's period in charge spanned 34 Test matches (won 10, drawn 12, lost 12) and only Peter May has led England in more (41) Tests than he has. However, Gooch's biggest mistake (which he now concedes) was to hang on too long - largely through the loyalty he felt to his old Essex friend and mentor, Keith Fletcher.

Fletcher, despite the fact that Gooch had grown weary of touring as long ago as 1986, talked Gooch into going to India. Then, when Gooch offered his resignation after the Old Trafford Test this summer, he was again badgered into staying, at a time when his gut instincts told him he was attempting to draw blood from a stone.

His public persona as captain doubtless remains that of a morose, cheerless individual, but he has always been wary of the media as a collective unit, and his press conferences were basically an exercise in avoiding any kind of innocent comment that could be turned into a Gooch-blast headline. 'You saw it, you write it' and 'Yes, of course we'll be trying to win, what do you expect me to say?' was his underlying philosophy.

Sometimes, though, this urge to say as little as possible, and avoid the tub-thumping excesses that some parts of the media feed on, helped bring out the dry wit that his friends see every day. 'How will you line up your slip fielders in this match?' he was once asked. 'Well,' he said, 'I thought perhaps I'd put them next to the wicketkeeper.'

His shuffling gait, hangdog moustache, and persistent speculation that he actually began his career opening the batting with Methuselah, disguises a much more cheery soul. Now that this particular boulder is off his shoulders, he will probably give vent to that side of his character a good bit more often. Whatever else, he deserves a rest.

GOOCH FILE

TEST RECORD

Debut: 1975 (0 and 0 v Australia, Edgbaston)

First century: 1980 (123 v W Indies, Lord's)

No of centuries: 19

Highest score: 333, Lord's, 1990)

Record: 105 matches, 191 innings, 8,102 runs, ave 43.79.

Captaincy record: W10 D12 L12.

1988 v West Indies, Oval - L by 8 wkts

v Sri Lanka, Lord's - W by 7 wkts

1990 v WI, Jamaica - W by 9 wkts

v WI, Trinidad - D

v New Zealand, Nottingham - D

v NZ, Lord's - D

v NZ, Birmingham - W by 114 runs

v India, Lord's - W by 247 runs

v India, Manchester - D

v India, The Oval - D

v Australia, Melbourne - L by 8 wkts

1991 v Australia, Sydney - D

v Australia, Adelaide - D

v Australia, Perth - L by 9 wkts

v WI, Leeds - W by 115 runs

v WI, Lord's - D

v WI, Nottingham - L by 9 wkts

v WI, Birmingham - L by 7 wkts

v WI, The Oval - W by 5 wkts

v Sri Lanka, Lord's - W by 137 runs

1992 v NZ, Christchurch - W by inn and 4 runs

v New Zealand, Auckland - W by 168 runs

v NZ, Wellington - D

v Pakistan, Birmingham - D

v Pakistan, Lord's - L by 2 wkts

v Pakistan, Manchester - D

v Pakistan, Leeds - W by 6 wkts

v Pakistan, The Oval - L by 10 wkts

1993 v India, Calcutta - L by 8 wkts

v India, Bombay - L by inn and 15 runs

v Australia, Manchester - L by 179 runs

v Australia, Lord's - L by inn and 62 runs

v Australia, Nottingham - D

v Australia, Leeds - L by inn and 148 runs