Following James Foster last week, we follow up the legendary wicket-keeper with undoubtedly the Club best player. The Cult Heroes series is supported by Allen Ford and this week’s profile’s the career of Graham Gooch.
Essex Career Stats (1973-1997)
First-Class Debut: 18 July 1973 v Northamptonshire
Appearances: 847
Runs: 47,237
First Class Average: 49.01
Highest Score: 275 – 1988 v Kent
Centuries: 128
Fifties: 249
Wickets: 453
No-one will dispute that Graham Gooch is the greatest batsman Essex has produced. His world-class status is confirmed by the mountain of runs he scored all around the globe and there was no more thrilling sight in the world than watching Goochie annihilate attacks with his brutal power.
He has scored more runs for Essex than anyone else. He amassed 30,701 at first-class level for the county in a 24-year career dating from 1973, and that included 94 centuries, the first being an unbeaten 114 against Leicestershire at Chelmsford when the county won by two wickets with an over to spare.
At Test level, too, he was a gigantic figure. He featured in 118 games, 34 as captain, and scored nearly 9,000 runs, including 20 centuries, at an average of 42.59. He is the only batsman to have scored a triple hundred and century in the same Test (333 and 123 against India at Lord’s in 1990) but probably his two greatest knocks were against the most fearsome attacks in the world.
Both of them were at Headingley when conditions favoured the bowlers. The first of them was in 1991 when he carried his bat for 154 in a total of 252 against a pace attack of Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh, Malcolm Marshall and Patrick Patterson.
A year later in another low scoring match that England won by six wickets, Essex’s favourite son struck 135 when Waqar Younis, Wasim Akram and Mushtaq Ahmed were striving to remove him.
Yet his Test career did not get off to the best of starts, being dismissed for a ‘pair’ by the Australians on his debut at Edgbaston. He was removed third ball by Max Walker in the first innings and undone by a vicious Jeff Thomson lifter in the second.
Gooch would have substantially added to his total of Test appearances had he not been banned for three years at the beginning of the 1980s for taking part in the rebel tour of South Africa.
It only served to make him readily available for Essex as he set about imposing his will on the domestic scene.
His highest Championship score was 275 against Kent at Chelmsford in 1988 but while his first-class record for the county may never be surpassed, his deeds at one-day level were also phenomenal.
He scored 8,573 runs in the Sunday League, including a dozen centuries with a top score of 176 against Glamorgan at Southend in 1983, amassed 5,176 runs in the Benson & Hedges Cup and carried off a record 22 Gold Awards in the competition. He also won nine Man of the Match awards in the NatWest Trophy in which he totalled 2,547 runs with a personal best 144 against Hampshire at Chelmsford in 1990.
But the one-day innings that gave him and Essex supporters the greatest satisfaction was the one in the Benson & Hedges Final at Lord’s. In becoming the first player to hit a century in the final, his 130 laid the foundation for victory against Surrey and signalled the county’s first trophy after a wait of 103 years.
“Obviously, there was a great relief at the end that we’d finally won a trophy after falling short of the line many, many times but on this occasion, we finally got over that line,” he relates.
“It all came together in 1979 because of not only winning that trophy but going on to win the Championship comfortably way before the end of the season. And that was the launchpad for many years of success.”
While Goochie will always be remembered for his great performances with the bat, he was also more than a useful medium-pace bowler. He captured 200 wickets for Essex at first-class level, his 7 for 14 against Worcestershire at Ilford being his best return, and 253 wickets in List A cricket.
He also proved himself a superb slip fielder.
At England level he played 125 one-day internationals, scoring eight hundreds while amassing 4,290 runs.
Since retirement from playing, Gooch has been heavily involved in a variety of posts with both Essex and England and is currently a Club Ambassador and also serves on the Cricket Advisory Group.
