It was
confirmed over the weekend that England will utilise the services of Graham Gooch following the current ODI series. Gooch flew out recently to help out the Performance squad who are also based out in South Africa and will team up with the full side ahead of the first Test starting in a couple of weeks time.
He has helped out the side on occasion before, and given his links to Andrew Flower it is no surprise that he has been called in on a short term basis again. The value of Gooch is likely to be less technical, and more on the mental aspect of batting - something that Patrick Kidd
commented on:
Eight of Gooch's 20 Test hundreds were worth 150 runs or more, with his 333 against India at Lord's in 1990 being the pinnacle. But big hundreds have been beyond England recently. In the past decade they have made only five double-hundreds, the most recent being Pietersen's 226 v West Indies in 2007.
By Gooch's own admission, he is more concerned with 'how many' than 'how', and England do fare poorly in comparison to other countries in terms of the big hundreds. Whilst centuries can build a platform for a strong total, it is the big scores of 150+ that set up match winning totals.
During the 2009 Ashes series, England managed to win despite being heavily outscored in the century count. On paper, this winters series in South Africa is set to be a close one. England cannot afford a similar statistic if they hope to emerge with a series win.
They will be hoping Gooch's influence can pay off in this regard.