1984: The bravery of Paul Terry

It was an image that would dominate the back pages. When Chris Woakes walked down the steps leading to the boundary edge at the Oval, the crowd stood to applaud this noble deed. With his left arm in a sling and inside his jumper, Woakes arrived at the crease with England requiring 17 runs to win the final Test against India.

With Woakes suffering a suspected shoulder dislocation, it was evident that Gus Atkinson (or extras) would have to get England over the line. Alas, England fell agonisingly short, the sheer will and skill of Mohammed Siraj enabling India to deservedly draw the series. Come the conclusion, a lot of the press coverage inevitably praised Woakes for his bravery.

Woakes' appearance jogged the memories of many an England supporter of a certain age. The circumstances may have been very different from the tail end of England's innings at the Oval, but in July 1984 another English batsmen arrived on the scene sporting the Woakes look. Paul Terry could probably relate to Woakes' pain.

1984: Viv Richards' 189

"I think that's the greatest ODI innings," Australian skipper Pat Cummins said, regarding Glenn Maxwell's stunning unbeaten 201 against Afghanistan in the 2023 World Cup. "It's the best I've ever seen, probably the greatest ODI innings ever." Former New Zealand wicketkeeper and commentator Ian Smith seemed to agree. "I've never seen anything like it."

Sport naturally sets itself up for debates about the greatest or worst, be it competitor, match, series, tournament, goal, try, shot, insert as appropriate. As soon as anything happens in the sporting arena, you can be fairly confident that within minutes or hours pundits and social media experts will be discussing the merits of what we have just seen.

Defending Chris Tavaré

It's easy to mock. It really is. Take a glance back at a lot of things from the past and the natural reaction is to pour scorn. The Sinclair C5, SodaStream, three channels on British TV, no overnight television, and the national anthem played at closedown. Pound notes. Pah, what a bunch of losers those dinosaurs were in the 80s.

Admittedly some of these things earned derision at the time. But it really is not fair to look back at all our yesterdays through a lens that is obscured by what we live through today. Which is a roundabout way of me attempting to defend an English cricketer of the past that, shall we say, maybe might not have fitted in too well with this brave new world of Bazball that we see today.

England's unwanted Test record

England's recent win at Lord's against New Zealand was just their second in 18 matches. In the 1980s we weren't so fortunate.

All seemed rosy in the England cricket garden in December 1986. As Gladstone Small settled himself to claim the catch that retained the Ashes at the MCG, the "can't bat, can't bowl, can't bowl" outfit had silenced the doubters. The celebrations were long and hard that night in Melbourne, and in hindsight that was just as well. Because England would not win another Test match for 20 months.

1980s cricket: Australia lose six in a row

Australia recently suffered their fifth Test defeat in a row, the innings and 80 run loss against South Africa the latest in a series of embarrassing reverses. But in the 1980s the team managed to go one better (or worse), losing six on the bounce, and in the process, reducing their skipper to an emotional wreck.

The post of national captain had been far from kind to Kimberly John Hughes. After winning his first Test in charge in 1979 against Pakistan, things always seemed to conspire against the Western Australian. On the brink of taking a 2-0 series lead in the 1981 Ashes series, Hughes saw victory, and most probably the urn itself, snatched from his hands, as an inspired Ian Botham and Bob Willis combined to pull off the miracle of Headingley.

When Botham's 5-1 in 28 balls sealed another unlikely win at Edgbaston, and Beefy bludgeoned a marvellous century at Old Trafford, Hughes had gone from possible hero to absolute zero in the space of a few dizzying months.

1986: Mike Gatting and his broken nose

Mike Gatting was in a confident frame of mind at the start of England's tour to the Caribbean in 1986, but one ball from Malcolm Marshall changed everything.

Mike Gatting faced his fair share of famous deliveries during his career. Many will remember that reverse sweep he attempted off Allan Border's bowling in the 1987 World Cup final, a shot that was accompanied with derision and disappointment in England. And naturally the role played by Gatting in the Ball of the Century is still discussed, his confused expression after Shane Warne had fizzed a leg break past his outside edge all part of the theatre that surrounds that moment in cricketing history.

1987 Cricket World Cup: Best performances

Following on from my recent piece on the top performances at the 1983 World Cup, this week I am looking back at the 1987 tournament. Featuring a typical one day innings from Allan Lamb, a superb knock in a losing cause by Dave Houghton, some explosive hitting from Viv Richards, top semi-final displays from Craig McDermott and Graham Gooch, and a contribution in the final that perhaps should get a bit more credit than it deserves.

1983 Cricket World Cup: Best performances

There were a number of memorable displays at the 1983 World Cup, during a tournament in England and Wales that saw the West Indian champions finally toppled. This week I am looking back at some of the key performances during the tournament, covering the story of an inspired Zimbabwean, an unlikely West Indian hero, struggles for Sri Lanka, an inspired Indian skipper breathing life into his team, and the subsequent successes of India's seamers who took their team all the way to the ultimate prize.

1986: Viv Richards' 56-ball Test century

When Misbah-ul-Haq recently hit a 56-ball century against Australia in Abu Dhabi he equalled a Test record that had stood for 28 years. That particular innings was played by a man who is an all-time great, one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Century, and a knight of Antigua and Barbuda. Sir Vivian Richards' assault on a floundering England during the final Test of the 1986 series in the Caribbean was as thrilling and exhilarating as the fast bowling attack the West Indian skipper had at his disposal, one which had pounded England into submission during the series. And to top it all, the record was achieved at St John's, Antigua, the home island of the great man himself.

1980s: Sporting thrashings

There can be nothing worse than being on the end of a sporting thrashing. I should know, having once played in for a junior football team which lost a match 33-0 (we made the local paper and earned a free trip to Burger King and the local cinema to watch Home Alone, so we did get something out of it).

My embarrassment was fortunately limited, a very local affair that I have tried my best to forget. But many of the participants in the following sporting thrashings were not as lucky as me. Theirs was very much a national or international humbling, played out in front of the watching public, read about by sports fans at the time and since.

1980s: Test match 99s

For my 99th blog this week, I thought I would analyse the number 99 in the 1980s. No, this is not a blog on Nena's Red Balloons, or my constant quest for ice cream as a child, but a look back on the eight men who made Test match 99s during this decade. For some, the mere act of scoring one more run for the treasured Test landmark gave us an insight into the psychological barrier that exists between 99 and 100. For one unlucky man, it was as good as it got.

1980s: England batting collapses

The twin collapses at Brisbane last week reminded English cricket supporters of a certain age of some dark days in the past. The 1990s, and in particular the surrender at Melbourne in 1990, were recalled as examples of an era where England were more than likely to wilt under any kind of pressure. But the 1980s also featured some incredible displays of English catastrophes, the foundations built in the sand for the decade that followed.

1988: England v West Indies

As an England cricket fan growing up in the 1980s there are a fair few entrants in the most disastrous series of that particular decade. For some it has to be the 1989 Ashes, for others the 1983-84 'sex, drugs and rock and roll' tour of New Zealand, and it is pretty hard to look past the whole of the 1986 summer in which England managed to lose home series to both India and New Zealand.

And then there is the English summer of 1988. Never mind the second summer of love, to us English cricket fans 1988 will always be the summer of four captains.