Graham Gooch
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Template:Infobox Cricketer Graham Alan Gooch (born July 23 1953) is a former English cricketer.
Gooch was born in Whipps Cross Hospital, Leytonstone, in East London on 23 July 1953. As such, playing cricket for Essex was hardly a surprise.
Gooch played first-class cricket between 1973 and 2000. His debut in Test cricket came in 1975, and was marked with a 'pair'. Gooch played for the England cricket team for many years, but had a bloom late in his career, scoring a record 456 runs in a Test in the 1990 series with India, made up of a score of 333 in the first innings (one of the highest scores of all time) and 123 in the second. (This is the only instance in Test or indeed first-class cricket of a batsman scoring 300 and 100 in two innings of the same match.)
He continued to bloom as captain of England, rated the best batsmen in the world for most of the early 1990s. As he got older, his skills started to fade, and as his Test match career went on past the age of 40, it became clear that he would have to pass on the captaincy to a successor, fellow opening batsman, Michael Atherton. Soon after, in 1995, at the age of 42, Gooch retired from Test match cricket as England's all-time highest run scorer. He scored 44,846 runs in all first-class cricket at an average of 49.01, including 128 centuries. Gooch also bowled occasional medium pace, and took over 200 first-class wickets.
The somewhat charismatic Gooch naturally slipped into a role as a cricket coach, and in the mid-1990s faced with a receding hairline, began promoting hair transplants for a London-based clinic.
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| Preceded by: John Emburey | English national cricket captain 1988 | Succeeded by: David Gower |
| Preceded by: David Gower | English national cricket captain 1989-1993 | Succeeded by: Mike Atherton |