The Big Interview: Darren Gough

One sunny day in May two years ago, Darren Gough smiled the smile of a man for whom disaster was no more than an eight-letter word. As we idled away the early afternoon in conversation on the steps of Leeds Rugby League Club at Headingley, he was a picture of fitness, an athlete at the height of his powers. That morning, on the other side of the stadium, he'd helped Yorkshire polish off Somerset and he was looking past wrapping up his county's first championship since 1968 to the arrival of Steve Waugh's Australians.

Down in Cardiff that afternoon, Arsenal would lose the FA Cup final to Liverpool. This was a source of some satisfaction to Gough, who supports Barnsley and Tottenham Hotspur.

Gough was rated fourth in the world among fast bowlers at the time - the best among England pacemen since Bob Willis 18 years previously - and he'd just been voted the Cricketer of the Year at a dinner in London. It was his benefit year, the most profitable ever for a Yorkshire player, and his autobiography was moving swiftly off the shelves. He spoke enthusiastically of beating the Australians after suffering three heavy Ashes defeats.

'It's every childhood dream to win the Ashes,' Gough said. You almost believed he could do it on his own. When we finished, he packed up quickly and drove south down the motorway to his wife, Anna, and their two sons, who were waiting for him. They lived in a nice house in the celebrity triangle also occupied by Posh and Becks and a host of other luminaries.

There seemed little that could go wrong in 'The Dazzler's' universe.

Once he might have popped over to Barnsley first for a pint with old mates, maybe even have met his best friend, Chris Lycett. He'd had his first fight at school with Chris. They had another one, sharing the honours. Times move on. Better get home. Besides, he'd been getting grief from Yorkshire fans who reckoned he wasn't trying any more for the county. Too big for his boots now, some said, living down south, hanging out with all those celebrities. Hardly ever see him these days. One or two other things would go wrong for Goughie after that...

Two years on, and the wind cuts across the top of a hill in the Southampton suburbs. Overnight rain had delayed the start to 2.30pm and Yorkshire are making hard work of it against Hampshire's seam attack on a difficult pitch at the Rose Bowl.

Still, Gough's smile is as ready as it ever was. He looks near his best weight and he has started the season with a few wickets. But this is not the Gough of that Headingley afternoon. He is 32, near the end of a fast bowler's term, and he has had three operations on his right knee. He'd been sent home from Australia, told he ought to pack the game in. A lot of people said he was washed up. They saw him on television last summer, sitting in the stand at Lord's with a mate, a pint in one hand and smiling. The critics jumped on the image of a well-paid cricket star enjoying his sabbatical when, they reckoned, he should have been sweating in the gym.

He hasn't played for England for a year-and-a-half. He might not again. All that and his relationship with Anna is over. He lives nearby, still, to keep in touch with his children. It's amicable, but, inevitably, lonely.

You had the world at your feet the last time we spoke, I say. How tough has it been? 'It's just been a nightmare. The last year has been probably the toughest of my life. But I'm looking forward now. By just getting back playing again...'

When Graham Thorpe's marriage ended, the Surrey batsman withdrew from the spotlight, pulling out of England's winter tour to Australia and the World Cup in South Africa. Gough has handled it his own way.

'I've suddenly got the desire to prove people wrong, after being told to find another job, and that there was no way I'd play cricket again. I'm pleased with myself and I'm pleased to have proved a lot of people wrong by getting back playing cricket.'

The low point for Gough came one afternoon at the England academy in Adelaide before Christmas when a specialist gave him his chilling verdict: after three operations and two failed comebacks, there was no point in carrying on. 'You better look for another job, Darren,' he said.

What other job? He might have been a footballer once. He trialled with Barnsley and Norwich City, but, irony of ironies, England's fastest bowler lacked pace on the football pitch. He went back to Yorkshire and trained as a bricklayer. As if that was going to satisfy him. Cricket and lots of it was the only job Gough wanted.

He went to America, saw another knee guru and was heartened to hear that the problem with his knee was not the microfracture inside but the lack of strength around it. So, after listening to a battery of experts and ignoring the obituary writers, Gough went back to his roots to save his career - and, more importantly, give his life purpose.

Wayne Morton, the Yorkshire and former England physio for many years, put him on a strength programme and the bowling coach Steve Oldham rebuilt his action to relieve the stress he was putting on his right knee in the delivery stride. So far, it looks to have worked.

He bowled 24 overs in his first game back and wants to get that up to 40 overs to prove he can still handle the workload of a Test match. Oldham has him moving more smoothly through his delivery stride, with an increase in pace and control. Gough reckons he is bowling as well as ever, with no pain.

As he pores over the details of his rehabilitation, a Yorkshire supporter puts his head through the door of the players' dining room where we're sitting and to wish him luck. 'Thank you,' says Gough. 'Thank you very much.'

How much does that gesture of support mean to him, I wonder.

'It's very important. And it's everywhere I go. Unbelievable. Maybe it's because they haven't seen me for a while, but I really appreciate it. Everyone's wished me well and they all want to just see me back playing again for England. They think it's a better team with me in. It's not me saying that, it's the supporters. You've got Ian Botham saying it, and he's my hero. So if he's saying it...'

He sounds desperate to please those people who believe in him. But, if he has the supporters and old friends behind him, he's still wary of the people who will decide if he has a future with England, the people who told him in the winter that he was finished.

'It's not very nice when you get told that it's a waste of time, that you might as well go home and find a new job. It hasn't been easy. So I worked on it for about 12 weeks before I even attempted to bowl. When I did, I came off two yards, then three, then four yards, working my way up to what it is now. Even three weeks ago, people didn't think I'd start the season.'

It's the stubborness that made him such a good bowler under pressure, to get a wicket when one seemed unlikely to come, to lift his team-mates at the end of a long day. Nobody since Botham has done that quite so effectively as Gough. If he wins his place back in the England team, it will be partly by force of personality.

Not surprisingly, he thinks it will happen. And, without wishing to disparage the incumbents, he reckons England have missed him. He watched the World Cup knowing he would have made a difference had he been fit enough to be there.

'There's a place there obviously, especially in the one-day side. And me being England's leading wicket-taker, I feel I would be the obvious choice. I'm not giving up on Zimbabwe yet. All I'm concentrating on, me, is just playing and bowling. I wouldn't be heartbroken if I did not play against Zimbabwe, no. I'm happy to be playing for Yorkshire. And it's good to get into the groove, to be taking wickets, getting into that rhythm of bowling every day.

'I was so disappointed watching the World Cup because I thought we could have done a little bit better, but the injuries stopped us performing. I think we lacked experience in the bowling department. I think that was quite obvious. And we missed Graham Thorpe in the batting line-up. If we'd had that, myself and him in the side, I think we'd have done a lot better. And the last game against Australia was terrible to watch, when you knew you had one player to get out. Disappointing. And we didn't go to Zimbabwe.'

Ah, Zimbabwe. While Nasser Hussain, as captain, was left to carry the debate over England's dilemma about whether or not to fulfil their Harare obligations, there was a palpable lack of conviction around him. Some senior players let it be known privately that, maybe, they should go. Most would do what they were told. They said they were bored with the arguing. The management scratched its bum. The Zimbabweans held out threats of reprisals they never could match. The International Cricket Council looked on like weapons inspectors lost in the desert. You can picture Gough filling a few silences.

'We shouldn't have gone, no question about that. But it had nothing to do with safety reasons, like they said. For me, it was a moral issue, nothing at all to do with safety. But we could go on all day about that.'

No doubt he would have. And Hussain would have welcomed the bubbling presence of his talisman. He might again. The selectors will watch Gough's progress as closely as they will any of the younger prospects around the counties, bowlers such as the impressive Kyle Hogg, of Lancashire, whom many think is not far away from playing for England alongside his team-mate James Anderson.

Gough's best chance of a way back, now that his former bowling partner Andy Caddick is unavailable for the one-day games, is in the limited-overs triangular tournament. They might even risk him in the second Test against Zimbabwe.

'I need to be fit, I need to be strong and I need to be bowling... and we've just lost another wicket and I'm batting nine. See ya.' He got 72.

After what he has been through and after what he has done for England, nobody can say Gough doesn't deserve one more shot to light up our summer days.

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