To mark England’s 1,000th men’s Test match, against India at Edgbaston – live on Sky Sports Cricket from 10am on Wednesday – we have asked our pool of pundits to pick out their favourite moments from the 999 so far…
We’ve already brought you part one of our feature on Friday, focusing on the best of the Ashes, and will give you the chance to vote for your favourite of the bunch on Saturday!
Here, in part two, we look at the best of rest of England’s top Test moments…
Isa Guha: England v West Indies, Lord’s, 2000
England win by two wickets
“I was 15, watching, around the time of this Test – I would have been in the England development squad, playing for the U17s. Darren Gough and Dominic Cork were my biggest inspirations at the time, and both picked up four wickets in the first innings, but England didn’t go so well in the first innings either – Windies greats Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh too claiming four apiece to bowl us out for 134.
“We were under pressure, but I remember the Sherwin Campbell dismissal, with Gough diving to his right, down at third man – he always found a way to influence the game – and then Andy Caddick just blew them away, taking 5-16 from 13 overs to bowl the West Indies out for 54! Alec Stewart says it’s one of the best spells of bowling he has ever kept wicket to.
“The game finished on day three – not quite as quick as when Caddick ran riot again in the two-day Test at Headingley later that summer – but England still needed 188 to win, and it got very tight in the end. Michael Atherton (45) and Michael Vaughan (41) had a good partnership together, but Walsh took six-for. It was left to Corky to stabilise the innings with a crucial 33 not out and he and Gough were there to get us home with the winning runs.”
David Gower: South Africa v England, Johannesburg, 1995
Match drawn
“For sheer bloody mindedness at the crease and an example of utter commitment to your country’s cause, I’m going to select Michael Atherton’s 185 against South Africa in the second Test at Johannesburg. Set a highly unlikely 479 runs to win, the tourists were 232-5 when Jack Russell joined skipper Atherton at the crease – and 277 minutes later the pair were still there, unbeaten and unbowed. Given the situation they were in and that they faced a bowling attack that included Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock, few gave England a chance of saving the game.
“But Atherton’s innings, which lasted 643 minutes and comprised 492 balls, proved that with the right mindset, allied with determination and no shortage of skill, it is possible to salvage a game. His effort was a testimony to everything that makes Test cricket the true challenge it is. Atherton and Donald had many a gladiatorial contest over the years, not least at Trent Bridge in 1998, and it was one of the defining battles of that era.”
Bob Willis: England v Pakistan, Edgbaston, 1982
England win by 113 runs
“That Edgbaston Test in the 2005 Ashes takes some beating, but one particularly close to my heart is my first Test as England captain, against Pakistan at Edgbaston in 1982, going up against opposite number Imran Khan, at the height of his powers – he’d take 21 wickets in the three-match series, including seven in the first innings – and putting on a last-wicket partnership of 79 runs with Bob Taylor on day three, either side of tea.
“My unbeaten 28 was my highest ever Test score. Apart from a bat itself, I didn’t really have any batting equipment, so I was wearing someone else’s rather heavy helmet, and when dodging, not diving, out of the way of Imran bouncers (because my knees could barely work anymore) I badly ripped my neck constantly trying to sway out of the way! It would keep me out of the next Test match, but the runs proved rather vital in victory, and I returned for the decider at Headingley, which we won to clinch the series.
“We’d been deprived of around 15 of our best players who went on the South Africa rebel tour, so it was one of the most pleasing victories of my short captaincy career.”
Rob Key: England v South Africa, Headingley, 2012
Match drawn
“Pietersen’s hundred at Headingley, hitting 149 off 214 balls! It was probably the best knock I’ve ever seen, against a proper attack, at their peak, in Dale Steyn, Vernon Philander, Morne Morkel – Test cricket is at its best.
“It’s the only time England managed more than 400 as they lost the series and their No 1 ranking to South Africa. But, on this occasion, they just did not have an answer for KP! Also, considering everything else that went along with it – the ‘textgate’ scandal and all the drama that unfolded afterwards – it makes his knock even more incredible.
“You watch some sportsmen, and you just think ‘I can never come close to doing that’ and he was one of those guys – he was on a different plain to everyone else. He’s one of the best, if not the best, batsmen England have ever had, certainly from a pure entertainment point of view, and a true trailblazer. A lot of the stuff we see now, in the IPL and T20 cricket worldwide – the way these guys use their wrists and their hands in such a way – Pietersen was doing before anyone. There was nobody else like him.”
Mark Butcher: England v South Africa, Trent Bridge, 2003
England win by 70 runs
“Graeme Smith had just smashed double-hundreds at Edgbaston and Lord’s – seeing off Nasser as captain in the process – and we were 1-0 down heading to Trent Bridge. Nasser was under huge pressure, with his place in the side now also being called into question, without a Test ton for a year, but he and I both hit hundreds in the first innings, in a 189-run partnership for the third wicket – great times! The headlines were quite rightly all about him the next day, given what he’d gone through in the preceding weeks, but it is also one of my favourite Test innings’ for England, playing as well as I ever did, and that’s including my hundred against Australia at Headingley in 2001.
“It was just one of those memorable occasions, a brilliant Test match, and the series itself was about as good as you could get. We won the Test, with James Kirtley taking six-for on debut as the pitch got a bit up and down as South Africa chased 202, then went on and lost at Headingley, but had the most incredible win at The Oval to tie the series 2-2. My mate Thorpey hit a first-innings hundred on his comeback into the side, and Marcus Trescothick managed a double. I was there 20 not out at the end of the run chase, a fitting end to a favourite summer for me.”
Benedict Bermange: England v India, Lord’s, 1990
England win by 247 runs
“India captain Mohammad Azharuddin’s decision to field looked justified with the early wicket of Mike Atherton, but little did wicket-keeper Kiran More know, that when he dropped Graham Gooch on 36, it was to become one of the most expensive drops in Test history! At the end of the first day, England had progressed to 359-2 with Gooch still there on 194.
“Allan Lamb and Robin Smith also cashed in with centuries and by tea on the second day Gooch had moved onto 299. At that moment, the BBC decided to show the 4.05pm race from Ascot, and so the reaching of the first Test triple-century for 16 years had to be recorded. When he missed a tired drive after 10 and a half hours in the middle, Gooch had made 333 and he declared soon after with England’s total 653-4.
“Azharuddin was not to be outdone, lighting up the third day with a breath-taking innings of 121, from just 111 deliveries. However, India still needed 24 to avoid the follow-on when last man Narendra Hirwani strode to the crease. Kapil Dev’s approach was a simple one – four successive sixes off Eddie Hemmings. It was a justified assault, as Hirwani was dismissed next ball.
“Gooch was at it again second time around, hammering his way to 123, off just 113 balls, to notch a record 456 runs in a Test, and a triple-century and century double that has only been equalled once. India were set 472 to win and, after their openers fell cheaply, they slumped from 114-3 to 181-8 before a late flurry of hitting from Sanjeev Sharma (38) gave the defeat a bit more respectability.”
Watch the 1,000th England Men’s Test as they play India in the first Test at Edgbaston, live on Sky Sports Cricket and Main Event from 10am on Wednesday, August 1.
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