Gooch made full-time batting coach

Graham Gooch has been made England's permanent batting coach after the success of his consultancy role with the national side.

Gooch was recruited by Andy Flower, the team director, for the 2009-10 Test series in South Africa and over the last 12 months England's batting has flourished. Until now he wasn't a full-time member of the coaching set-up although he will still only work with the Test side according to the Daily Telegraph.

Under his guidance England's batsmen have become prolific during the last year, most obviously with the efforts of Alastair Cook who has used Gooch as a mentor throughout his career. Cook scored 766 runs during the Ashes series and continued his form for most of the home Test summer, including a career-best 294 against India at Edgbaston.

Cook's innings was one of seven double centuries made by England's batsmen since May 2010 which equalled the number made throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Gooch demands 'daddy' hundreds from the batsmen which he classes as a score over 150. At some point in the fairly near future one of England's batsmen, mostly likely Cook, will overtake Gooch as England's leading run-scorer and others could also surpass Gooch's mark of 8900 runs.

"As far as I'm concerned I'll be absolutely delighted if someone goes past any of my records," Gooch said during the Oval Test against India, "because it'll mean England are winning cricket matches. From the time I was a captain, player and selector, I was only interested in one thing, and that was England winning matches."

Published by Unknown on 09:45. Filed under Breaking News, England, Feature . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0