England's odd couple head towards greatness

Andrew Caddick and Darren Gough have little in common, apart from taking wickets in each other's company.

In every other sense, they are oil and water.

As they proved again in the first test victory against Pakistan at Lord's, however, where they shared 16 wickets, they are threatening to become England's most successful bowling partnership of all time.

Somerset paceman Caddick is a shy, beanpole of a man, happier on the edge of a crowd and whose early career was wracked by self-doubt before he finally established himself as an England regular.

The barrel-chested Gough has never been anything other than Yorkshire bold-as-brass, the width of his smile matched only by the depth of his enthusiasm.

Their bowling styles, as well as heir physiques, provide as much of a contrast.

England captain Nasser Hussain said: "They hunt in a pair but their characters are different. Everything about them is different.

CAPTAIN'S PLEASURE

"They rub off each other. One is tall and swings away and gets bounce. The other is short and skiddy and exhuberant.

"They are a pleasure to captain."

Caddick, relying on the steep lift afforded him by his 6ft 5ins frame, his away swing and his nagging accuracy in that no-man's land just short of a length, took the honours at Lord's, four wickets in each innings earning him the man of the match award.

Gough, quicker and more ready to innovate with changes of pace and line, did not give up centre stage easily.

A man built for expansive gestures, he became only the eighth Englishman to take 200 test wickets as he enforced the follow-on with three wickets in four balls, removing Waqar Younis and Shoaib Akhtar with the last two deliveries to ensure his first five-for at Lord's.

That earned him a place on the roll of honour hanging in the Lord's pavilion.

LORD'S BOARD

"To get my name on the Lord's board, that meant more than the 200," he said. "That's there forever. I knew I had to get Shoaib with that last ball, otherwise Andy would have stopped me again."

Typically, a post-match news conference by the two on Sunday was largely dominated by Gough although the scorecard -- the top three Pakistan batsmen in the first innings and three of the first four in the second -- belonged to Caddick.

England supporters have to go back to Fred Trueman and Brian Statham in the 1950s and early 60s to unearth a more prolific pair of quick bowlers.

They, too, combined contrasting attributes, Statham relentlessly accurate, seaming the ball and frustrating batsmen into taking a chance against Trueman's raw pace.

Those two played 35 tests together, sharing 284 wickets. England won 13 and lost eight of those games.

Caddick and Gough now have 189 in 24 matches while in tandem, with 12 England wins and five defeats.

Gough, at 30, and Caddick, at 32, have a few more years left to bridge the gap.

Waqar, perhaps, offered the greatest praise when he likened the partnership to the one he enjoyed with Wasim Akram in the early 1990s.

"It's like me and Wasim, they're getting it together as a pair," he said. "Caddick, especially, was extraordinary. He was getting bounce and kept the ball in the right place and we kept nicking it."

Mail Cricket Editor