David GOWER

England had been waiting for a new young batsman for several despairing years when David Gower, a teenager with golden curls from the King's School in Canterbury started scoring runs with effortless grace for Leicestershire in the mid 1970s. Even the carefree Gower wanted to make a good impression. His mother sent him to his first training session in a suit. That he had natural style was evident from the moment he pulled his first ball in Test cricket for 4. In the summer of 1978 he scored 438 runs in six Tests at an average of 54, scoring 111 against New Zealand at the Oval. He went to Australia with Brearley on successive winter tours, scoring 98 not out against Australia at Sydney on the second. He also plundered 200 not out from India in 1979 and made a match saving 154 not out in Jamaica in 1981. His easy style seemed to lead to equally easy dismissals and on a number of occasions selectors lost patience and dropped him. He was at his peak on Bob Willis' Ashes tour of 1982-83, when he consciously tried to drive straight down the ground and made 150 in an ODI v New Zealand. On two occasions he deputised as captain for Willis. During the tour of Pakistan in 1983-84 his batting - 152 in one match, 173 not out in the next - and tactical grasp was enough to get him the captaincy, unsuccessfully in successive series against the West Indies, but triumphant when he won the Ashes in 1985, making 86 at Lord's, 215 at Edgbaston and 157 at the Oval. He played in the 1979 World Cup Final and in 1983 made 130 in the cup-tie against Sri Lanka at Taunton. (Bob Harragan).