Over the course of his 14-year international career, David Gower established himself as one of England’s greatest ever batsmen. After Gower called time on his playing career, Martin Johnson paid this tribute to him in the 1994 Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack.
In the spring of 1975, as was my custom in those days, as cricket correspondent of the Leicester Mercury, I turned up to one of Leicestershire’s pre-season training sessions to welcome back familiar faces and say hello to one or two unfamiliar ones.
Sitting on a bench waiting to take part in a five-a-side football game was a blond, curly-headed young lad I had not seen before. “Hi there, David Gower,” he responded to my introduction, and then in reply to the inevitable follow-up of “what do you do?” he said, “I, um, bat.”
Gower was not selected against Australia the following summer, even when England were losing 4-0. And when, under the new captain Mike Atherton, he was left out of the tour to the West Indies, he decided that playing on for Hampshire was not sufficient motivation to resist offers of full-time media employment.
He was comfortably the most treasured English cricketer of his generation, and possibly the most treasured ever. This puzzled even him (Gower at least recognised one or two of his more frustrating traits) but it may not have been unconnected to the Englishman’s innate suspicion of perfection, plus his almost complete lack of ego.
His inherently lazy nature made him an indifferent captain, particularly at county level, where the fact that he was largely an instinctive player made it difficult for him to sympathise with and offer advice to individuals; and by his own admission he lost touch too often when away on Test duty.
As a Test captain, he shone most brightly on the 1984-85 tour to India, where his bright, positive outlook rubbed off on the team in uncomfortable surroundings. Gower was tactically uninspiring, although he never wavered in his belief that Test players were good enough not to require the sergeant-majorish treatment that he latterly perceived from Gooch and the team manager, Micky Stewart.
When he started his career, he was a shy lad who liked the occasional glass of house wine. When he finished, he was an extrovert imbiber of vintage champagne. However, the reason he was loved, as well as admired, is that he finished with as few airs and graces as he had when he began – except in his batting, which was graceful to the last.
