Sorry Kusal, But Gooch's Knock Is Still The Greatest

Derek Pringle casts his definitive vote on Test cricket’s greatest innings after Sri Lanka’s Kusal Perera clinched victory against South Africa

- Derek Pringle

Kusal Perera’s incredible unbeaten century against South Africa, which saw Sri Lanka prevail by one wicket in Durban last week, has inevitably led many to speculate whether it is the greatest Test innings of all time – an accolade, at least until the miracle of Kingsmead, believed to belong to Graham Gooch.

Perera’s 153 certainly had people dusting off the superlatives. Only the left-hander’s second Test hundred, it managed to secure a rare overseas win for a team that tend to travel worse than a punnet of strawberries; a rare victory over South Africa (in the context of the last 25 years); a last gasp triumph by one wicket with the No.11 surviving for over an hour; and the highest score by some distance in a match where only four others exceeded 50.

Gooch’s knock, an unbeaten 154, came against the West Indies in 1991, when they were still the best Test team in the world. In the current table, South Africa are second. Gooch was also captain, a role he admitted spurred him on but an added pressure has nonetheless given the time and effort it demanded to matters other than his own batting.

Some will point to Gooch being on home turf as an advantage over Perera, who was playing away. Yet, Gooch’s average for England at Headingley was a less than eye-catching 20 to that point, which would not have been of great succor to him.

Statisticians will have all kind of factors, functions and quotients by which to base their models of comparison.

This piece, unashamedly, will be about making assumptions in all their glorious subjectivity – assumptions about how easy or difficult the bowling was; the nature of the pitch; as well as other stuff about the conditions. There will be all kinds of mental leaps made, too, about the pressure the match situation placed upon the batsmen – all based on individual judgment and all highly speculative.