Leaders at Lord's

Graham Gooch, 1990
The definitive Lord's performance. Four-hundred-and-fifty-six runs of the most indomitable run-making imaginable. With his stooped shoulders, flat-footed strides and truncheon-like bat, Gooch patrolled the hallowed turf like the village policeman, and as Wisden Cricket Monthly put it, he ought to have booked himself for "loitering with massive intent".

In the first innings he was reprieved on 36 when Kiran More fumbled a regulation nick, but scarcely looked back thereafter as 43 fours and three sixes rained forth from his blade, in ten and a half hours of merciless accumulation. Garry Sobers' world record seemed there for the taking until, to the astonishment of all, especially the Indian fielders, he missed a drive against Manoj Prabhakar and was bowled for a pleasingly rounded 333.

And yet, he was not finished. After Kapil Dev had averted the follow-on with four consecutive sixes, Gooch returned to the crease in search of a speedy declaration. He responded with a second century, this time at better than a run a ball, to finish with a match tally that to this day has never been surpassed in Test cricket.

Graeme Smith, 2003
The captaincy contest when South Africa toured England in 2003 seemed, on the face of it, to be grossly uneven. Nasser Hussain, recently lauded as England's "best since Mike Brearley", was the man everyone assumed would call the summer's shots, and when he (unwittingly or otherwise) referred to his 22-year-old opposite number as "Greg" in the pre-series press conference, the tone of the series had apparently been set.

Not a bit of it. In the first Test, at Edgbaston, "Graeme" Smith left no one in any doubt as to his real name or his resolve with a then-South African record 277. England were happy to escape with a draw, but Hussain had seen enough and resigned the captaincy with immediate effect after the match, leaving his successor, Michael Vaughan, just two days to settle into the job. Smith needed no further invitation to go for the jugular, and clobbered England's bewildered bowlers for 259 in South Africa's only innings in the next Test, at Lord's. It was the highest score ever made by a visiting batsman at Lord's, surpassing Don Bradman's legendary 254 in 1930, and Makhaya Ntini completed a historic match with South Africa's first and only ten-wicket haul at the ground.

Mahela Jayawardene, 2006
Has there ever been a more improbable escape in Test cricket than the one engineered by Sri Lanka's dogged batsmen at Lord's in May 2006?

England, in their first home Test since their seminal Ashes victory of the previous summer, swaggered to a first-innings total of 551 at almost four runs per over, then reduced the visitors to 85 for 6 with three days of the match remaining. The captain, Jayawardene, was the last recognised batsman, yet somehow with his first-innings 61 he infused his team-mates with a sense of belief. Sri Lanka rallied to 192, with the tail surviving until lunch on the third day, and the team lost only three wickets in the next two sessions after being asked to follow on. Jayawardene, once again, led the rearguard with his second century in consecutive appearances at Lord's, but even so, Sri Lanka's lead at the close of the fourth day was a mere 22 with four wickets standing. By then, however, England's belief had been shot to pieces. Ten catches were dropped in the course of the innings, and for want of a better tactic, the captain, Andrew Flintoff, resorted to bowling himself for an ankle-pounding 51 overs as Jayawardene glided to 119 and Sri Lanka to safety.

Kepler Wessels, 1994
The BBC, unforgivably, missed the moment because they cut away to a news bulletin, but by rights South Africa should have been overawed when they finally stepped out at Lord's in their first Test against England for 29 years. The England team itself certainly believed that should be the case, despite the evidence of South Africa's 1-1 home-and-away draws against Australia earlier in the year.

When Andrew Hudson and Hansie Cronje fell cheaply to the new ball, their side was teetering at 35 for 2, but into the fray strode the captain, Wessels, a part-time pugilist whose love of a scrap was second to none. He had previous against England as well - at Brisbane in 1982-83, he lumped them for 162 of the best while making his debut for Australia, but now he preferred to sit on the ropes and absorb the punishment that England flung at him. With Gary Kirsten providing stalwart support, Wessels ground his way to a five-hour 105, and set his team on their way to a first-innings total of 357 that exceeded, by one run, their eventual margin of victory. Allan Donald swooped in to scatter England for 180 in their first innings, and they couldn't even muster triple figures second time around.

Wally Hammond, 1938
It was a great misfortune for Hammond that his career coincided with that of Bradman. Everything he achieved paled in comparison, although 22 hundreds and a Test average of 58.45 don't look too anaemic in the final analysis.

At Lord's in 1937, seven years after Bradman had lit up the ground with the innings that is widely considered to be his finest of all time, Hammond recorded his first Test century on the hallowed turf, at the ninth attempt. One year later he was back for more, and this time made it a mountainous performance with 240 runs from 394 balls, in a shade over six hours. Even then, however, he was unable to secure the final word against his old rival. Bradman came to the crease in the final innings, with Australia chasing an unlikely 315 for victory. He didn't get them there, but he did finish unbeaten on 102 - his second century in three visits.

Mohammad Azharuddin, 1990
Not many losing captains stick so fast in the memory, but Azharuddin's role in the 1990 Lord's Test was so legendary that it deserves an entry of its own. His decision at the toss, to insert England on a flat and straw-coloured batting track, was right up there among the most dreadful the game has ever seen, but the manner in which he rose above that aberration has entered folklore. Whereas Gooch had been all about power and sturdiness in his monumental 333, Azharuddin was wrists, risks and breathtaking craftsmanship as he whipped and whisked England's bowlers to all corners in a sumptuous 87-ball hundred. He was the cavalier to Gooch's roundhead, and yet, ironically, it was the speed of his response that gave England time to win the Test, in spite of the weight of runs that had to be racked up over the five days.

Garry Sobers, 1966
Sobers' finest performance at Lord's arguably came in 1970 when, as captain of Rest of the World, he stuffed the cream of England's batting with 6 for 21 in 20 overs, then trampled all over their remains with 183 runs of the finest middle-order violence. The Lord's honours-boards recognise his twin feats, but the history books do not, but happily for Sobers he wasn't shy of producing his best on the grandest stage.

Four years earlier, he had come to the wicket in the second innings against England, with his side reeling - effectively 9 for 5 with a day and a half of the match remaining. Yet five and a half hours later he and his young cousin David Holford were still there, their unbeaten fifth-wicket partnership standing at a record 274. Before the match was out, West Indies turned the tables even further, as England lost their first four wickets for 67, before Colin Milburn's century guided them to safety.

Allan Border, 1985
Australia were a shower of a side in 1985, shorn of star players because of retirements, rebel-tour defections and injuries. Never before or since has their team been at such a low ebb, and yet there was one man who stood head and shoulders above his team-mates in terms of talent, discipline and Aussie bloody-mindedness.

Border went into the second Test of that summer with his side 0-1 down in the six-match series, but the Lord's factor kicked in with a vengeance for the tourists. Famously, they lost there only once in the whole of the 20th century, back in 1934, and when Craig McDermott took 6 for 70 to dismiss England for 290, Border saw his opportunity to protect that precious record. From an uncertain 101 for 4, he repelled England for seven and a half hours, compiling a then-Test-best 196. Even then his work was not done. Chasing a dicey 127 for victory, memories of 1981 resurfaced as Ian Botham scalped both openers to help reduce Australia to 65 for 5. However, an unbeaten 41 settled the jitters, and the match.

Michael Vaughan, 2004
Among the many accolades that Vaughan has racked up in his record-breaking career as England captain, few are as overlooked as his batting feats at Lord's. This week's century against New Zealand was his sixth at the old ground, which equals the record held by Graham Gooch. Yet, many of Vaughan's performances have been overshadowed for one reason or another, usually because of the weight of runs being scored around him. Take the 2004 Test against West Indies, for instance. England were already 320 for 2 when he came to the crease in the first innings, with Andrew Strauss having fallen for 137, and Robert Key bedded in for his career-best 221. Vaughan eased largely unnoticed to 103 out of a towering total of 568, but two days later he was in the middle again. A further unbeaten 101 allowed him to emulate Gooch's 1990 performance, and become only the third batsman to score hundreds in each innings of a Lord's Test.

Hanif Mohammad, 1967
Nine years after his Test triple-century against West Indies and eight after his world-record 499 for Karachi, Hanif demonstrated that his hunger for monumental innings had not abated, as he rescued Pakistan from the mire with a landmark performance at Lord's.

England won the toss and batted first, and were carried to an imposing 369 by Ken Barrington, whose 148 would be the first of four hundreds in consecutive Tests. In reply, Pakistan's top order was routed, first by the medium pace of Ken Higgs, then by the more fiery John Snow, and at 139 for 7, an innings defeat seemed the likeliest outcome. Hanif, however, found an ally in Asif Iqbal, and together the pair pieced together the innings with a 130-run stand. Even when Asif fell, Hanif was not finished, and he was left unbeaten on 187 out of a total of 354 by the time the last Pakistani wicket fell.

Bev Congdon, 1973
Congdon continued in the second Test where he had left off with his defiant second-innings 176 in the first, at Trent Bridge, where New Zealand nearly chased down an impossible 479 to win. "We had restored a hell of a lot of pride," Congdon said later, "and that carried us for the rest of the tour."

And so England were held to 253 on the opening day at Lord's. Day two belonged to Congdon, who finished it unbeaten on 100, becoming the first New Zealander to make three centuries against England. He went on to an eight-and-a-half-hour 175 - one run less than his Trent Bridge effort, which was positively spry in comparison at under seven hours - that helped New Zealand to 551, their highest total against England.

England saved the game thanks to Keith Fletcher's 178. "New Zealand took the honours but no victory," as Wisden reported.