Gooch hit 154 runs from 331 balls in 452 minutes for
England at Headingley in 1991. It remains one of cricket’s greatest innings
By Phil Walker for Wisden
Cricket Monthly
It’s 8am on a blustery Tuesday and the emeritus professor of run-makin’ is out on the Devon moors rambling through the decades. After resting awhile at Headingley in 1991 and a few other points in between, he lands on 1981, and the memory of a hundred at Barbados in the shadow of Ken Barrington’s death which stops him in his tracks so suddenly that all I can hear is the whistling wind chasing the wisps of his voice. It’s already been a long and sprawling conversation. He pauses, apologises for his tears, and quietly and respectfully exits the call.
Barrington, forever draped in the union flag, was the “father figure and mentor” to a youngish, roguish bunch of England players on that West Indies tour, and Gooch loved him dearly. “A great man. We didn’t have a coach – technically he was our assistant manager – but he assumed the role of coach at the nets. He was a great guy to talk to, it was never about ‘his day’. He just gave you good nuggets of information.”