With England having suffered the first of what will likely be the first of many ignominious defeats in Australia this winter, I think it is high time to look back on one of the few Englishmen to consistently get the better of our antipodean foes.
Certainly there are many from the early days of Ashes cricket — Hobbs, Hammond, Hutton, and others should always be celebrated — but in recent history, only Gower and his partner in crime Ian Botham have given Australia so many nightmares over so many series. Even in this regard Gower stands out, as while Beefy’s fitness and form faded, Lord Gower’s Ashes contributions were excellent throughout.
Botham’s lifestyle contributed to his transformation from one of the best cricketers in the world to something of a golden-arm by the mid-80s, before becoming a has-been trading off past glories by the twilight of his career. While Gower’s lifestyle was hardly befitting of a modern athlete, his last Ashes tour in 1990/91 saw him notch two magnificent centuries in Melbourne and Sydney before his tour was unfairly cut short as punishment for an aerial jaunt to celebrate Robin Smith’s century in a tour game.
These hundreds meant Gower reached three figures in every Ashes tour he played in Australia, including the successful 1986/87 tour, but his zenith came at home in the 1985 Ashes. Not only did Gower captain an England team that won at a canter, but he scored 732 runs at an average of 81.33. These included tons at Trent Bridge and the Oval, either side of 215 at Edgbaston.
Gower also had a fairly respectable record against the finest side of his era (and the greatest team in the history of any sport), the West Indies. His 154* at Sabina Park against an attack of Marshall, Holding, Garner, and Croft is one of his best.
Of course, virtually every run of Gower’s test career was made with effortless swagger. No one would claim that he was the greatest batsman ever, but it’s a fairly safe bet he was the most elegant. And it is certainly true that the laid-back demeanour, and occasional careless wafts of the bat outside off, belied a genuine great.
Certainly, against Australia, including when in Australia, he was a great deal more effective than what we have to watch now.
Image credits: “David Gower” by Wil.Liam.Antony is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.