Selectors should forget about Gough and put faith in younger talent

Whichever way you look at it, an awful lot of hype has recently been written and spoken about Darren Gough. Depending on who you listen to, he is either on the point of being forced to chuck it all in because of injury or else, after a game or two with the Yorkshire Second XI, he will be something approaching mid-season form for the last few limited-over internationals and the Tests against India after that.

Neither is quite true although, unhappily, the former is probably much closer than the latter. One gets the impression, too, that we are talking of one of England's great fast bowlers. This may not be true either, even if one never wants to belittle his passionate enthusiasm, his determination to give his all and his sheer inspiration which has brought him 228 wickets in 56 Test matches.

For a short time it seemed that Gough might join the ranks of England's finest fast bowlers. In 1994/95 in Australia he took 21 wickets in three Tests and showed that, like everyone else, the Australian batsmen did not care for true pace which was up and at you. The future seemed to be at his feet.

By the end of that tour, however, he had been laid low by the first of many injuries, a stress fracture to his left foot. He was out of Test cricket for 11 months before returning to the England side for the one-day matches against Pakistan in 1996.

A year later he missed the last two Tests against Australia because of an inflamed knee which was the start of his present troubles. He had an exploratory operation at the end of the season and more drastic surgery early the next year. Ever since, his fitness has been suspect, to say the least.

He tore the cartilage in his right knee in Dunedin during the last of the five one-day games against New Zealand earlier this year. Hard though he has fought to come back, having had two more operations, he has so far stumbled at almost every hurdle, but being the man he is, it will be sometime yet before he will be prepared to give best to the wretched joint.

Gough has never been a natural fast bowler. Early in his career he raised his pace from medium to fast by a sheer physical explosion of energy. He tears in at the batsman, arms and legs going for all their worth, and delivers the ball, like Bill Edrich soon after the last war, as if he was a human cannonball. Gough's fast bowling action has always been intensely physical and it is this which has taken toll of his body.

For all his enthusiasm, Gough probably lacks Bob Willis' devastating single-mindedness, which brought him greater consistency and 325 Test wickets. Willis was not a natural fast bowler either and, in appearances, a less joyful exponent of his art but he remained fit and was more successful.

England's management should have read the writing on the wall with Gough before they did – they may not even have done so now. Because of his method and his age which is nearing 32, he is, alas, always going to be a liability and if he ever again finds pure fitness for one last time, his pace is unlikely to be so sharp. As it is, he has been able to play in only 22 first-class matches in England since the start of the 1999 season.

For a while now, when he has not been fit, it has been as if the England camp have thrown their hands in the air and exclaimed, "Without Gough what can you expect". At the moment Andrew Caddick is unfit as well and he is in danger of becoming a similar red herring.

Injuries to them both have become a smokescreen which will not do. Certainly, they are England's two most likely fast bowlers, but they are not the only ones about. Rod Marsh who runs the celebrated Academy in Adelaide, has, this year, spoken highly of England's young fast bowling prospects and yet his words seem to have fallen on deaf ears.

Alex Tudor is left out whenever possible – and for Dominic Cork of all people in the first Test of the summer. Simon Jones, like others before him, has been spoken about, called up and so far left high and dry. He must be beginning to wonder if it will ever happen.

When it looked as if Gough would be out of this Triangular tournament, the selectors' reflex action was to talk about going back to Alan Mullally or Chris Silverwood. Going back rather than moving forward. We are getting on for the halfway mark of this summer and still the young players who will be needed to face Australia if England are to have even an outside chance of success, are waiting in the wings.

If, misguidedly, they take Gough to Australia this winter, it is Lombard and Threadneedle Streets to a clockwork orange that he won't last the series. It's dreadfully bad luck that it should happen to such a spirited and inspirational chap, but Gough's knees would, on their own, call for a special edition of The Lancet. We must all move on.