David Gower: 'We beat Australia and had as much Bollinger as we could drink'

As captain, Gower led England to a memorable Ashes win 38 years ago and predicts more series success this summer

David Gower's WhatsApp photo is of him in a Tiger Moth plane, during his infamous flight midway through an England tour match against Queensland in 1991. The flight cost him a £1,000 fine but he laughs about it over lunch in Winchester. Gower has no regrets.

Besides, in an Ashes summer, there are altogether happier memories for Gower to relive. From 1981-87, England won three out of four Ashes series with Gower playing in all bar one of the Tests during this happy run. The middle series, in 1985, was Gower's golden summer. As skipper, he scored three centuries to help England regain the urn.

After the first two of the six Tests, the contest was locked at 1-1. Gower had scored 86 at Lord's, when Australia levelled the series, and felt in good form when he arrived at Nottingham. A glance at the wicket made deciding to bat first an easy decision.

"It was flat," Gower recalls. "The trick, of course, is to make sure you don't miss out."

The Test fizzled out into a draw, but Gower's 166 provided a harbinger of what was to come.

On the night of August 14, with the series still square and only two Tests remaining, England held a team dinner in Birmingham. "As I rose to address the troops, the usual suspects — [Ian] Botham and [Allan] Lamb — were throwing bread rolls in my direction." Gower decided that "if the mood is that good, let's just cut this short."

Rain interruptions meant that Australia would only be bowled out, for 335, early on day three. By the end of the day, England had already soared into a 20-run lead, for the loss of just one wicket; Gower's 215 came off just 314 balls, his side's 595 for five declared at 4.4 runs an over.

"I didn't make any great speeches saying here's our plan, we need to score at four an over. It just happened — it was instinctive," he says.

"I look back at some of the footage, picking up [leg spinner] Bob Holland. I know he wasn't Shane Warne, but if you’re going over the top you can still miscue — so, to plonk him in the stands a few times feels good. And it keeps things ticking. It's early Bazball."

The scoring rate of Gower's side created more time. On the fourth evening, seamer Richard Ellison used that spectacularly, taking four wickets to reduce Australia to 37 for five. One of those was Allan Border, Australia's skipper. As his rival trudged off, Gower thought "this is going to go our way."

It drizzled all the following morning at Edgbaston and, whenever Gower glanced outside the dressing room, he saw Border giggling away.

As captain, Gower was never the dictatorial sort. He told his players: "if you’ve got an idea and it's a good one, I’ll nick it. If it's a bad one, try again." When play finally resumed, midway through the afternoon, Gower started with orthodox fields; with Australia unlikely to get into the lead, Botham and Lamb advised him to crowd men around the bat.

Two of those close fielders combined for the crucial moment of the Test and, perhaps, the summer. Wayne Phillips cut a ball to the off side but, via the boot of Lamb, who was taking evasive action at silly point, the ball then rebounded to Gower himself. Australians have always disputed the validity of the wicket; Gower has no doubt. "It bounces off the top of his foot - bounces straight up. Thank you very much. How's that?" Under an hour later, England were 2-1 up.

Gower's first job in the sixth and final Test at The Oval was among his most important: win the toss and choose to bat first. His second was to make good on this advantage. After arriving at 20 for one, he hit 157 and shared a triple-century stand with Graham Gooch; with each Gower flick or cover drive, so a little more tension about England regaining the urn dissipated.

"If ever there were a good toss to win and ever a good day to bat well, it was day one of that game. So I rate my 150 there more highly than 200 in Birmingham because of the feeling of if there's one thing you wanted on day one of that game it was to try and put it out of Australia's reach. I don't think I’ve played any better than that. It was the perfect day one."

After England secured a 233-run first innings lead, Gower was left with one final decision: whether or not to enforce the follow on. Ostensibly, making Australia bat again offered a tiny route back into the Ashes. Gower thought otherwise: "Put the pressure on, keep the pressure on."

On the fourth day, Ellison and Botham secured England's second-consecutive innings victory, just before the rain. "We had as much Bollinger champagne as we could drink in a day," Gower recalls. "As a captain, as an individual, you’ve done something rather special - it does not get better than that. So that is your absolute dream in an Ashes series, sort of a comic book story."

But Gower's reward was unlike that in any comic book tale. Before the 1985 series, Gower was promised a bottle of port for each century he scored by Athol Angus, the managing director of Wiggins Teape, the stationery company who sponsored him.

What Gower didn't realise was that Angus meant pre World War One port. "It's orange not red, but the spirit holds them together — so they’re still very drinkable." The three bottles remain safely unopened in his cellar.

Gower could never be accused of being inconsistent in his approach. At Trent Bridge in 1989, with England already 3-0 down after four Tests, Mark Taylor and Geoff Marsh, Australia's opening pair, batted through the entire first day undefeated.

In the first session of day two, matters improved just a little: England got a wicket, ending the opening stand on 329. In the dining room at Trent Bridge the sides sat "cheek by jowl" alongside each other. "They’ve got these lovely dinner ladies, serving the soup. So I walked in and said ladies, we need champagne. We have taken a wicket." And so, with Australia 370 for one, Gower sipped a glass of champagne at lunch.

He had little else to cheer all series. England used 29 players in that summer that saw a 4-0 Australian victory and a looming rebel tour. "The golden rule about rebel tours is the only person who doesn't know about them is the England captain," Gower reflects. "You realise that half your team, whether you wanted to drop them or not — f------ useless though they were — are no longer available."

Eighteen months later, aged only 33, Gower scored his last Test hundred, at Sydney. Unusually for Gower, this century was motivated by anger. With England already 2-0 down, Australia scored 518; before their own first innings Gooch, now England captain, lambasted his side. At the team meeting, frustrated with the approach of Gooch and head coach Mickey Stewart, Gower retorted: "I don't want to hear that we’re crap".

"It was an angst-ridden hundred," Gower recalls. "I played beautifully — though I say it myself — and when I held the bat up I was thinking it was good for me. It wasn't an act of rebellion — I just saw things differently. I wanted them to be more understanding, less rigid." Gower's 123 helped to secure a draw but, especially when it was followed by his ride in a Tiger Moth plane, crystallised the cultural differences between the two Gs.

"Training, for me, was like gardening. You do it once — you think well that was fun. But if someone says go do it again tomorrow — why, I did it yesterday? I was never ever going to run a marathon — Graham could run marathons."

After the tour, Gooch told Gower to churn out county runs and prove how much he wanted to play for England. Gower averaged 17.8 in his first five Championship games. "It was one of those terrible ironies — the harder I tried, the worse it got… It was the most debilitating time of my life and career — it was horrendous."

The period provided Chris Cowdrey with material for his best man's speech, after Gower was omitted from the tour of India in 1992/93: a decision so contentious that it led to MCC members calling a vote of no-confidence in England's selectors.

"He went through the absences alphabetically," Gower chuckles. "A, Bs, Cs and Ds and so on… But no Gs!

"An epithet like Cavalier and Roundhead is an easy tag — it's good in one sense because it explains the core of an issue, but it doesn't give you the nuance," Gower reflects. "There's always scope for different elements within an 11." A cricket team, in his view, needs both Goochs and Gowers.

And, if his languid style could be a little infuriating, Gower's consistency was underrated. He succeeded against both pace and spin. Unusually, he averaged more away than at home — averaging over 42 in all continents in which he played, even succeeding against the imperious pace attack in West Indies.

Seven men, including Gower himself, captained him in at least three Tests; Gower averaged over 40 under each which soared to 54 under Gooch, the Roundhead who thought that he had no need for his Cavalier. Only two men — Jack Hobbs and Sachin Tendulkar — have ever bettered Gower's nine centuries against Australia.

England, he is confident, will have reason for cheer once again this summer.

"England will win," he says, predicting one rain-ruined draw and the hosts triumphing 3-1. Just like 1985, then? "That’ll do."