Test Profile (Part 1) 1978-1985.
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).
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