That winter, in his first Ashes series, Gough ensured that he did his best to live up to the tag. At Sydney for the New Years’ Test of 1995, after coming in trailing 0-2, Gough had made two ambitious resolutions: not to lose a Test match to
Australia in 1995 and not to get out in the middle of a Shane Warne hat-trick. The first resolution was already hanging in the balance when England found themselves shaking at 20 for three, before Atherton and John Crawley addd 174 for the fourth wicket. However, another collapse of four wickets for four runs was to follow, before Gough went out to bat at 197 for seven. “Fasten your seatbelts”, is what Gough told commentator Mark Nicholas, who had wandered into the England dressing room, before he went out to bat on Day Two.
“The next hour was heaven. I swung from the arse…and connected,” wrote Gough. “The Aussies got rattled and started moaning at Craig McDermott. ‘Bounce him.’ He did and that’s when I hooked him for six. Then I hit him back over his head. Finally, I pushed a single for my 50 and then gave the crowd that famous lasso salute, swirling the bat around my head. Of course I was carried away. The SCG (Sydney Cricket Ground) was full, I’d never heard a noise like it and I’d belted the cream of Australia’s bowling to all parts. I was out soon afterwards [for 51], caught hooking, but the whole mood of the game had changed,” as England went past 300.
Wisden described Gough’s innings as a “jaunty innings of village-green innocence and charm.”
Graham Gooch said that it was “just like having Ian Botham around,” to which Illingworth replied, “Don’t let us compare him to Beefy (Botham), Fred Trueman or anyone else. Let us just be happy we’ve got Goughie.”
Not yet satisfied, Gough followed up his thrilling half-century with six for 49 with the ball, all but completing his own Headingley ’81. “As the wickets fell, I realised that this was my Test. Everything I tried — yorkers, slower balls, off-cutters, leg-spin — worked. It’s a great feeling when anything seems possible. You must grab the moment, because it doesn’t happen that often in your career, however gifted you may be.” Perhaps Gough himself did not know how true those words would turn out to be. He was soon to be ruled out of the rest of the tour after cracking his foot, the first of the many injuries that would dog his career.
Injuries notwithstanding, Gough went on to become England’s first-choice strike bowler for Atherton, and later under Hussain and would be new coach Duncan Fletcher. Throughout the mid-late nineties, England were far from the top row of teams in world cricket and even languished at the bottom of the heap for a while. However, Gough’s mere presence in the dressing room was enough to provide them whatever little belief that they could perform well. “He provided the effervescent spirit and fun that stopped the team becoming too dour under Mike Atherton, or too intense under Nasser Hussain,” wrote Emma John in
The Observer.
Gough crafted variations in his bowling to add to his ability of bowling fast and swinging it both ways: he soon developed a deceiving slower ball and also a nipping off-cutter. By the time he visited Australian shores again, he was good enough to become the first England bowler in over a hundred years to get an Ashes hat-trick, also at his beloved SCG, in front of a record turnout of 43,000. He was subsequently named Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1999. “In a team of brooders and worriers, he stood out for his bullish enthusiasm,” cricket’s bible wrote of him. “England need Darren Gough, and not just for his wickets.”
Under Hussain and Fletcher, Gough was part of a squad that won four series in a row between 2000 and 2001, the first time such a feat had been achieved since the time Mike Brearley was captain. Gough was Man of the Series at home to the West Indies, a historic triumph for England when the Wisden Trophy changed sides for the first time in 27 years, and also on the slow and sluggish wickets of Sri Lanka. No wicket was too flat for him.
Finally, after playing 58 Test matches and getting 229 wickets, Gough called it quits from the longer format in 2003 after another one of his injuries, this time to the knee. It brought an end to an unfulfilled and incomplete chapter in his career, majorly undone by injury, and it’s a pity that he could not go on to play more. If he had played 100, he would easily have gone on to break his idol Botham’s wicket tally in Tests (383).
It is a huge pity that
Darren Gough was probably born 10 years too early. Born in 1970, and having played majority of his cricket in the 1990s, a character Gough was unlucky to have been part of possibly the worst England cricket team of all time. The word ‘character’ has been deliberately used here, instead of the more clichéd ‘talent’, because Gough was such a wholehearted and colourful one. He was, as David Lloyd rightly termed, “the heartbeat of the England team”, always enjoying his cricket and doing his best to ensure that his mates enjoy it with him
.