SUCCESS in Test cricket by any team is invariably based on high-class opening
batsmen and fast and accurate opening bowlers. So many games hang on the
battle between the two when the new ball is taken at the start of an
innings, especially on the first morning. To see the shine off without
getting bogged down is the first duty for any batting side.
Since opening is such a specialist art and an understanding between the chosen
pair so important, I gave serious consideration to choosing a pair of
batsmen who, as it were, already knew each other.
Since 1953, Hutton and Bill Edrich, Richardson and Cowdrey, Pullar and
Cowdrey, Boycott and Barber, Boycott and Luckhurst, Boycott and John Edrich,
Boycott and Amiss, Boycott and Gooch, Gooch and Atherton, Atherton and
Stewart, and, briefly, Atherton and Trescothick, have established pairings
that at least felt right, even if they were not always as prolific as they
promised to be.
Would it be sensible, therefore, to plump for one of these combinations,
rather than picking the two best individuals?
There is a case for it, certainly. From W. G. Grace onwards, it has been rare
for England not to have had at least one opening batsman who stands
comparison to the best in the world. Unlike consistent middle-order batting,
truly rapid fast bowling or penetrative spin, this has not generally been an
area of weakness.
It is, however, at those times when a pair of openers, as opposed to one
individual, is doing consistently well that selection is relatively easy.
Before 1953, two pairs above all stood out: Jack Hobbs and Herbert
Sutcliffe, Len Hutton and Cyril Washbrook. None of the post-1953
combinations above quite matches them, although Gooch and Atherton averaged
56.84 in 44 outings together, seven of them passing 100.
It is tempting to plump for this pair, if only because both were so
outstanding against fast bowling and because they made as ideal a contrast
as was possible without one of them being a left-hander. The conclusion,
however, was that the two best individuals must be chosen. Atherton, for all
his stoicism, shrewdness, undoubted class and powers of concentration, was
not quite the equal of Hutton or Geoff Boycott, or, except on very rare
occasions, was he so dominating a player as Dennis Amiss. The fast bowlers
he faced were of a consistently higher standard, perhaps, but Atherton
averaged 37, Boycott 47 and Hutton 56.
I toyed with the idea that the most effective opening pairs tend to be
left-hand/right-hand combinations (more on this tomorrow) but, judged in the
harshest light, none of the fine left-handers who have opened for England
since 1953 -among them John Edrich, Richardson, Pullar, Subba Row, Barber,
Broad, Butcher and, the one who may become the best, Trescothick -quite
measures up. When the choice has to be made for the best potential England
pair since 1953, it narrows down to Hutton, Gooch and Boycott.
There was just sufficient oil left in Hutton's tank by 1953 for this frail
genius to be the obvious banker. He captained England to the first win in an
Ashes series for 20 years in that Coronation year and was comfortably the
outstanding player in a series largely dominated by bowlers. He scored 443
runs in nine innings -at an average of 55 -almost a hundred runs better than
any player on either side and at an average comfortably better than anyone
else. Indeed, no one else managed better than 39. Wearied as he was by all
that was entailed in being captain in so tense a series, he did even better
in the West Indies the next winter as the first professional captain to lead
England abroad in the 20th century. His 677 runs in only eight innings in
the series were scored at an average of 96.
"Hutton," Ian Peebles concluded in The Sunday Times, "while a magnificent
player of strokes, is the greatest defensive batsman in the world." Everyone
who bowled against him must have known that, from Lindwall and Miller down.
Not the carefree master he had been in 1938 when he made his immortal 364 at
the Oval, he was still, close to retirement, a craftsman on all types of
pitch and the pillar of the side. My memories of him are slight, but I
retain an image of wonderfully balanced, polished, unflustered mastery. He
must be the first choice.
Once it is made, a judgment between Boycott and Gooch becomes a little easier.
I saw at first hand a fair amount of Boycott's great career and all of
Gooch's. They were both, obviously, brave and correct players of fast
bowling. Both played spinners well, too. They were head and shoulders above
the other English batsmen of their day in county cricket with an equal
capacity to concentrate for long periods and apply high standards of
professionalism at all times.
Boycott was certainly the more copybook, technically, but he was not immune to
bad patches and he had as much difficulty against the innocuous left-arm
medium pace of Eknath Solkar as Gooch did against the guileful swing bowling
of Terry Alderman.
What must separate them, especially in view of the fact that the Hutton chosen
(by the rules of the exercise) in his post-1953 mode had become a relatively
careworn batsman, is that Gooch was more often a match-winner. Perhaps had I
seen Boycott bat under Ray Illingworth in 1970-71 I might have been inclined
his way: he scored 657 runs in his ten Test innings, having started the tour
with three hundreds in the four first-class matches that preceded the first
Test. That was mastery all right, but it had to be seen in context: John
Edrich, who was then batting at three, and Brian Luckhurst also had prolific
series.
Everyone knows that Boycott took a somewhat solipsistic view of the cricketers
around him and, much as one grudgingly admires his independence and supreme
selfbelief, there is no doubt that at times it got beyond a joke in the team
context. This has to be taken into account, too.
My lasting feeling about him will be of gratitude for so often giving solidity
and reliability to an England innings and the imperishable memory is of the
on drive off Greg Chappell that took him to his hundredth first-class
hundred on his home ground of Headingley in a Test against Australia. It is
hard to omit him, but the present Australians have proved once more that
successful sides need batsmen who are prepared to dictate the pace even
against the best.
No one else has been so prolific in one-day and two- innings cricket as Gooch.
In all, he scored more runs than any batsman in history: 65,928. Wonderful
striker of boundaries though he was, especially to all parts in front of the
wicket, he would have been even happier had he actually had to run every one
he scored because for him physical fitness was, and is still, an obsession.
There was seldom a more conscientious professional, perhaps never a fitter
one.
See him running to or from a cricket ground, or out on the road before anyone
else has had breakfast, however, and you realised that it was all a huge
struggle.
Heavy-boned and not naturally light on his feet, his success came from rare
inner drive, but he was also prodigiously talented. Picked before he was
ready to take on Lillee and Thomson in 1975, the way that he took on the
great West Indies fast bowlers of the 1980s (let alone the India spinners
during his 333 and 123 in the same Lord's Test of 1990) qualifies him beyond
doubt.
His 154 not out, scored from a total of 252 on a tricky pitch and in grey
light against Ambrose, Patterson, Walsh and Marshall at Headingley in 1991,
was one of five he made against one of those fearsome quartets from the
Caribbean. For an opener to resist great bowling courageously is one thing;
to dominate it another.
