England legend Graham Gooch on the Ashes, preparation and why Joe Root is key
“I THINK it’ll be their bowlers against our batters,” says Graham Gooch, warming to the subject of Ashes conversation. “If we get enough runs, I think we’re in it. I think the key thing for me is the first game.
"The first game's always key in Australia. You've got to start well. We can't afford to lose the first game. England don't play for draws. They don't know how to do that. No-one plays for a draw, but they especially don't.
“If we perform well in the first Test, and make sure we're level going into the second Test - because that could be a result, the pink-ball Test at Brisbane - I think we've got a good chance. If we go down in the first Test, it's historically a long, long way back.”
Gooch, 72, still speaks with passion, pride and perception. It is almost three decades since he brought down the curtain on a magnificent career in which he scored more runs in all formats (67,075) than anyone who has played the game, with only Graeme Hick and Jack Hobbs also passing 60,000.
Gooch played for England, captained them, served as a selector, tour manager and then as their batting coach, as well as giving outstanding service to his home county of Essex. He is also unafraid to voice an opinion, which should make him entertaining listening at Raworths Harrogate Literature Festival today when he takes to the crease to talk about his career in an event that starts at 4pm - around the time when he would have been walking out to bat again back in the day after the tea break with another unbeaten hundred to his name.
Returning to the theme of the forthcoming Ashes, with the first Test starting in Perth on November 21, Gooch is unhappy in one key respect. He is unimpressed that England have only one warm-up match - against their own second string, the Lions, who are touring simultaneously, at Lilac Hill, Perth, from November 13-15.
Prior to arriving in Australia, England play three T20s and three one-day internationals in New Zealand, with the first T20 scheduled for this morning. As preparation goes - white-ball to red-ball in the space of a few days - it’s a bit like warming up for a pub crawl by practising drinking pints of milk, an illustration of cricket’s punch-drunk schedule.
“I have to point out, like a lot of ex-players have pointed out… I’m sorry, but the preparation… How can I put it? I’ll be polite… Inadequate,” says Gooch. “The preparation of playing one game against your own guys doesn’t cut it for me. Because it's only one game, right? That's one thing. I reckon you need two or three. And, secondly, you need to play against Australians.
“Because you need to embrace yourself in the Australian style of cricket, your sort of hard-nosed, in-your-face, not-giving-an-inch type of cricket. State sides want to turn you over - quite rightly. They're hard games. They're tough games. But that, in my opinion, is what's necessary.”
Gooch should know. After all, he was batting coach when England last won in Australia in 2010-11, when they played three first-class matches before the first Test and another between the second and third Tests.
“We’ve only won four times there in 55 years,” he says, referencing the series victories in 1970-71, 1978-79, 1986-87 and 2010-11. “In 2010-11 we had three warm-up games. We won two and nearly won the other as well. We were ready for that first Test. We didn’t win that Test and found ourselves in a bad position, but we batted out for two days (famously finishing on 517-1 in their second innings after conceding a first innings deficit of 221, with Alastair Cook scoring a double century and Andrew Strauss and Jonathan Trott hundreds as well).
“And that was like a win to us,” adds Gooch, “because Australia would have expected to win that game, and, to be fair, if I'd have been the Australian captain, I would have expected to win, you know, and to bowl England out in two days. And that was the pivotal game in the series (after that, England achieved innings triumphs in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney, with only a defeat in Perth blotting the copybook). So I think we’re leaving it hugely to chance, you know, in terms of our preparation.”
When Gooch toured as a player, there were invariably plenty of warm-up matches prior to the Ashes. He accepts that ship has sailed but believes that a balance needs to be struck.
“I mean, five or six warm-up games, that’s not going to be the way of it now. But they’ve got a one-day series beforehand and they say – the authorities say – well, we’ve got commitments (in terms of the schedule). But we are defined by winning the Ashes, especially in Australia. And, of course, it doesn't happen that often.”
For it to happen this time, Gooch believes much will depend, as ever, on Joe Root. It promises to be a pivotal series for the Yorkshireman, who has never scored a century in Australia and is desperate to set that record straight.
“As I say, it’s our batters versus their bowlers, that’s my opinion, and Root is obviously key for us. I was on the tour as England batting coach when he came into the side (in India in 2012). He probably should have played the game before. He looked brilliant then. So, yeah, he’s key for us, certainly.
“I’ve got nothing but praise for him because he’s class all round, the way he works his game and looks at himself. I know he hasn’t got a hundred there, but the style that England play - and I’m not against that style, although it takes a lot of risks - you need him to be the anchor, you know, and fortunately, after the first year (of Bazball), they got him just to play his normal game, which is exactly what is necessary, and not try and enter into anything else.
“He doesn't need to do that. He just has to play his normal game, and everyone else plays around him. That would be the plan. So, he is very important for us. If he doesn't get runs, well…”
Another Yorkshireman hoping to have a big say on events is Harry Brook, ranked second in the world behind Root. Gooch is a fan and hopes that Brook will learn from his dismissal in the final Test against India in August, when, with England 301-3 chasing 374 to win the series, he aimed a big shot at Akash Deep and lost his bat and his wicket before India closed out a six-run victory to level the rubber.
“I'm not for one minute having a go at Harry Brook, because he's a brilliant player and fantastic talent, but, you know, at the Oval at the end of the season, he must be disappointed that he didn't see it through,” says Gooch. “He played brilliantly - I was there, watching. He played brilliantly, but he should have seen it through. You’ve got to seize the moment and see it through because India were finished, they’d gone, they’d given up.
“We gave that game to them, in my opinion, and, you know, you could say that they deserved it, they deserved to draw the series, and I wouldn't disagree with that. They played brilliantly, India, but we had them on the ropes and we let them off the ropes, and as a player you are defined by how many matches you win.”
Gooch remembers when he first saw Brook. It was at Scarborough in 2017 when Mohammad Amir ran through Yorkshire, taking 10 wickets in the match, and although Brook did not score many, the then 18-year-old hung around for over an hour in challenging conditions.
“He looked the only one, you know - and I’m not casting aspersions on the others… he looked the only one who was up for the fight,” says Gooch. "It was around the time when he was captain of England U19s, and he looked a player then.”
Gooch has fond memories of playing at Scarborough himself. “I met Phil Carrick there (the former Yorkshire player), and I played there when the Festival was, I suppose, in its original form, held over a couple of weeks. You used to have the band playing in the corner, all that sort of stuff. I actually played two one-day internationals at Scarborough - ‘76 against the West Indies and ‘78 against New Zealand, if I remember rightly (which he does).”
It is commonly held that Gooch’s finest hour came in Yorkshire, in the Headingley Test of 1991, when his unbeaten 154 against a West Indies side featuring Curtly Ambrose, Patrick Patterson, Malcolm Marshall and Courtney Walsh helped England to victory.
“It goes back to what I was saying earlier because what you should remember is when your performance makes a difference to your side,” he says, “so when people say what's your favourite innings, and all that sort of stuff, I always say the same thing. It’s not particularly the number of runs, number of wickets, number of goals, number of tries, it’s about when your performance in a match makes the difference and turns the match into your favour and you win the game. That, to me, is how you are defined.”