Gough is Home, Never to Return

You've braced yourself for the fact that England look bound to lose the Ashes, but are you prepared for the retirement of Darren Gough? Because Gough is back in England today, his ambitions of a glorious Ashes series and World Cup entirely abandoned, his last ball for England almost certainly having been bowled.

The Battle of Wounded Knee has been a prolonged affair, a traditional English farce involving three operations, two surgeons, and half-a-dozen failed comebacks. Perhaps Gough's number has been up since he finally surrendered to gnawing knee pain in New Zealand last winter, but that does not excuse the ECB's failure to monitor his rehabilitation more strictly.

At a time when Australia is again questioning England's cricketing desire, Gough should be extolled as a figure of inspiration.

As a young fast bowler, for everyone who believed in his ability, such as the Yorkshire Academy coach Steve Oldham, or his first county captain David Bairstow, there were half-a-dozen who told him he was next to useless. Members grumbled at his inaccuracy and journalists called for his sacking. It was miserable, moaning, mind-numbing negativity and England, not just Yorkshire, is awash with it.

The lad from the Barnsley comp survived to become the heartbeat of the English side. He was England player of the year three times; his 228 Test wickets are the seventh best for an Englishman; his strike rate is better than all modern English fast bowlers except Fred Trueman.

Gough has been a source of good in English cricket. Sure, he had the strut of a natural show-off. Sure, in the later stages of his career, he fell in love with the speed-gun, so much so that he might have been told to wear blinkers and get on with the job. Sure, he needed more guidance than he got. But his boisterous-buck-about-town fast bowling was, over virtually a decade, about as good as English cricket got.

Adulation drove him forward. Young spectators worshipped him. Once, while desperately compiling a Gough coaching book that ran out of ideas almost immediately, we decided to fill space with Darren's A to Z.

"What's C?" asked Goughie, in vaguely contributory mood, while we drove to the bakery for a sandwich.

"I thought of doing 'crowds'," I said.

"Crowds, I bloody love 'em," said Gough. "Bigger the better. Turn you on, don't they? What's D then?"

Gough loved to grandstand. He was a lovable, daft, fat lad, whistling his own tune. Well, only a little bit fat: the last time I suggested he was overweight (and he was), he faked to run me over on the Headingley cycle track in his four-wheel drive.

In those later years he also proved he had a cricketing brain. His skiddy, combative bowling became intelligent and experimental. He turned his off-spinner more than Robert Croft ever did. He was the first England player to master the art of reverse swing.

The Australians respected him, and did so in more uncomplicated fashion than Eng land did. It is best not to dwell upon his farewell Test series, in England two summers ago, when Australia's brusque dismissal of Gough and Caddick stilled talk that here was a new-ball partnership to rival Trueman and Statham.

Far better to recall Gough in his first tour of Australia eight years ago, bashing the three lions on his chest to communi cate English pride before he collapsed in a heap at Sydney with a broken foot. It was the first of many injuries that would have cowed lesser men. He lacked a fast bowler's body, but he survived through bags of ability and unquenchable optimism.

Gough desired to make cricket exciting, to appeal to a younger audience. He resented the slick-voiced cynics who proclaimed that cricket was in terminal decline. In his mid-20s, his proposals to save the game sounded more nightclub than cricket. By the time he was 30, he recognised that nothing came close to Test cricket, and shook his head that he had ever thought anything different.

Gough was uplifting and thoroughly decent. He was a living condemnation of all those in English cricket, at all levels, who take all and give nothing.

I believe he will never bowl a ball for England again. And I hope he rages over the very suggestion, works, prays and proves the prediction wrong. Because England, after the surrender of Brisbane, cannot afford to lose him.