The 1990 Lord’s Test match between England and India is memorable as the Gooch’s Test match. But overall it was a great Test match with many memorable performances with bat, ball and even while fielding.
India were touring with a relatively younger team and a new captain. They won their last series in England in 1986 with a 2-0 score line but this time there were quite a few new players who were in their first international tour to England. This included Navjot Singh Sidhu, Sanjay Manjarekar, Narendra Hirwani and a certain 17 year old named Sachin Tendulkar. For England also there was the young opener Mike Atherton who would went on to play 115 Test matches for them.
But for the first two days it was all about Gooch. India won the toss and took a terrible decision to bowl first. The English captain Gooch came out to bat with Atherton and started to capitalize. Despite the early loss of Atherton, Gooch added 127 runs with David Gower and then was part of an unfinished 218 runs partnership with Allan Lamb. He ended the day on 194 and Lamb on 104.
On 27th July, Gooch reached his double century and then made it to a triple. On the other end, Lamb was replaced by Robin Smith who also provided good support to him. The master class from Gooch was over when he was bowled by Manoj Prabhakar for 333. England declared on 653/4 once Robin Smith reached his hundred.
Indian response was a mix of boring and dramatic cricket. Ravi Shastri played one of his regular innings and scored 100 in over four hours. Mohammad Azharuddin displayed his stroke play and lightened up the Lord’s with his better than run a ball 121. But despite all this India were looking at the follow on as the number eleven Narendra Hirwani came to bat with 24 runs still required to avoid the follow on. In the striker’s end, it was Kapil Dev who was unbeaten on 53. The off-spinner Eddie Hemmings came to bowl and Kapil hit four consecutive sixes to get the required 24 runs at one go to save the follow on. India were all out for 454.
In the second innings England were looking to score quick runs and score 272/4 in 55 overs. Gooch scored another century and his 123 in the second innings took his match tally to 456. He became the first batsman to score a hundred and a triple hundred in the same Test match and 456 still remained the highest number of runs scored by any individual in one Test match. During this innings, young Tendulkar took a remarkable running one handed catch from long on off Allan Lamb.
With a target of 472 runs, Indian second innings lasted for only 62 overs. There were many starts with as many as five batsmen scoring between 27 and 38 runs with the number ten batsman Sanjeev Sharma top scoring. India were all out for 224 and England won the memorable Test match by 247 runs.
