LESS than two weeks to go, and Darren Gough’s ballroom dream remains thrillingly alive. Had you told the Essex and England paceman two months ago that, come December, he would be booking his place in the semi-finals of Strictly Come Dancing after a rumba declared “filthy”, even by the standards of cricketers on dance floors — well, he would probably have asked to see you in the car park.

Yet it has come to pass and there Gough stands, on the threshold of pro-celebrity ballroom glory, with the hopes of the entire cricketing nation resting on his shoulders, which were wrapped this week in a black silk shirt with a fetching red trim.

What a boost Gough’s prosperity is for his sport at this difficult time of the year, as a nation that rapidly succumbed to cricket fever in the sultry heat of an Ashes summer, queues up for the highly effective flu jab that is a series defeat against Pakistan. And what a message about the virtue of tenacity and endurance to send out to the England touring party in a dark hour for them. Which would explain why the BBC has been doing exactly that, parcelling up DVDs of Gough’s Strictly Come Dancing appearances and posting them off to Michael Vaughan and his squad, who, maybe, would have preferred money or tokens, or possibly even a decent steak and Guinness pie, but you can’t have everything.

This much we do know, though: whatever has caused England’s underpowered showing in the Tests over the past few weeks, it can’t have been lack of motivation. Surely there is nothing more guaranteed to get a cricketer’s blood up than the sight of one of his peers thundering in to waltz from the Pavilion End with a new partner in his hand. Similarly, you would have thought that pictures of Gough in a skin-tight catsuit, holding his own against such top-class opposition as Patsy Palmer, formerly of EastEnders, would have been all the incentive a side needed to get on and get the job done. One can only assume, in the circumstances, that Strictly Come Dancing DVDs must have reached the Pakistan dressing-room, too. And that they watched them that little bit more often.

Gough, though, has been dancing out of his skin. And when you remember how much skin he has to dance out of, the true extent of his achievement comes home to you. To make the fact crystal clear, one needed to look no farther than last weekend’s guest appearance on Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two by Gough’s Essex team-mates, Ronnie Irani and Graham Napier, who — admittedly with minimal training — performed a cha-cha-cha that was entirely wince-inducing. Clearly, dancing is best left to the celebrities.

In truth, the rumba that Gough produced in the most recent show, though clearly, as ever, the product of someone giving 100 per cent, fell short of his best work and the judges were not slow to underline this. The professionally waspish Craig Revel Horwood was particularly stinging in his praise. “For a man of your build and structure, that went very well,” he said. Or, as Gough himself paraphrased that remark later, “Not bad for a fat lad”.

“It rather looked like your hips had gone into hibernation this week,” Arlene Phillips said. She was by no means the first person, down the years, to have gone looking for evidence of hips on Gough and to have been forced to abandon the search. “Tonight, it was Darren lite,” Bruno Tonioli said — again, an unlikely prospect.

But the fast bowler was to redeem himself in the night’s second dance, the American smooth, in which, for the first time in this series, the judges were allowing, and giving points for, lifts. Is Gough a natural lifter? It’s a question the England squad will have been debating long into the night, I’m sure, in the hotels of Faisalabad and Lahore. But Gough entirely rose to the occasion — or, rather, made his partner entirely rise to it. Even Revel Horwood was impressed. “You make ballroom really sexy,” he said — which, again, was not the kind of praise Gough would have banked on hearing when he first decided to play cricket professionally.

But is there any catching Colin Jackson? At this juncture, for all Gough’s efforts, the former sprint hurdler appears to be running away with it. He is commended, week on week, for his “free hips”, brings to the table “the true intensity of a Latin lover” and has already been acclaimed as “the best male celebrity for use of the arms”.

Moreover, Jackson’s American smooth earned, from Phillips, the first perfect ten awarded to any male competitor in the Strictly Come Dancing era. He even appears to be equipped to surmount the biggest handicap facing the male celebrities — namely, the requirement that they lead their partner. (The female celebrities are in the arguably simpler position of being led by the professional. Ballroom is not a level playing field in this respect.) It may all be in vain for Gough, then, unless he can somehow get to Jackson. My tip: show him a DVD of England in Pakistan.

GILES SMITH RETURNS ON THURSDAY