At the OEC, one of England’s greatest and celebrated openers made his fourth visit to the Society, this time as speaker at our Annual Dinner, and he didn’t disappoint.
Building his speech like a typical Gooch innings, he utilised focus and control to establish himself, before opening up with the kind of stories everyone wanted to hear, told with dry humour.
In fact, he upstaged host Geoff Miller (alias ‘Dusty’) straight after being introduced with a wicked putdown of his former England team-mate; “As you know, ‘Dusty’ is one of the best after dinner cricket speakers in the world … but not the best speaker in his price bracket!”
Given his enviable reputation as being laser focused in his work, it was appropriate to start with outlining the four basic principles he tried to apply to every innings. It may be true that many batsmen can use one or more of them, but his career stats, and achievements, suggest that few have matched him in consistently harnessing so many for so long.
In deference to the Yorkshire based audience, Graham gave Messrs Boycott and Gough some ‘gentle treatment’, and a bit of heat to Kevin Pieterson and Bazball. Conversely, both Richards – Viv and Barry – and Shane Warne topped his personal ratings.
Line of the night; “The food here tonight has been brilliant. I tried some AI food the other day … a lovely leg of salmon!”
Another excellent event for the Society