But there are images of triumph, too, most notably a balcony scene from 1985 showing Gower in a storm of champagne, holding up the tiny Ashes trophy as a leering Ian Botham empties a can of Castlemaine XXXX over his head.By contrast with Botham, Gower always appeared to have a subtle, faintly angelic demeanour. Gower has contributed a foreword, which is game of him, given that the volume contains at least two full-page, full-colour plates depicting the author wincing in front of a crushed wicket. He has just come from Lord's cricket ground, from a lunchtime party for a large-format picture book marking 100 Cornhill-sponsored Test matches. From captain of England to captain of a quiz team: you don't need to be a psychologist to see that this is a shift which might take some adjusting to.But Gower seems to be coping well, certainly filling that giant diary.

In my last years as a player, I was already doing a little bit of writing and radio. So it wasn't a big change, just a change of emphasis."It's the dilemma facing pretty much any sportsperson - the brief career span, the retirement (in Gower's case, two years ago at the age of 36) and the construction of a life thereafter. This is the player of whom Martin Johnson, this newspaper's cricket correspondent, once wrote: "It is as much as he can do to decide which pair of socks to pull on in the morning." In retirement, this no longer seems to be Gower's problem."If you acknowledge early enough that there's going to be a finishing day," Gower says, moving now to the suite's dining table and dispatching at great speed a room service club sandwich, "then it doesn't have to be a shock when it arrives. He is also one of the most graceful, fluid and popular batsmen ever to stand at the crease, and a gentleman to boot - even if these qualities came at the price of some hesitancy. At the same time, he is England's second highest Test match runs scorer, the veteran of 18 Test centuries. He became in 1989 the first captain of any Test team to preside over eight successive defeats and was promptly replaced by Graham Gooch. He is going the modern route - from swashbuckling sportsman to media personality.

Next month, in a kind of apotheosis, Gower becomes one of the regular team captains (the other is his friend Gary Lineker) on They Think It's All Over, a new television quiz show - based on the original Radio 4 version - which, according to Gower, is "Have I Got News for You meets A Question of Sport and goes down a different road altogether". It would be fair to say that brisk efficiency characterised neither Gower's England captaincy nor, from time to time, his own playing style; and nor, more to the point, was he especially interested that it should. He is wearing a crisp shirt and a navy suit redolent of sales meetings in Birmingham and Trusthouse Forte conference rooms. Not for him the ever-present shellsuit of the retired tennis pro or the loudly leisured look of the ex-footballer. He tells his agent, with no particular emphasis: "I may just disappear into the bush for four days at the end, I'm not sure." The aura Gower gives off these days is businesslike, at least as it extends to his clothes and accessories. There is talk of departure dates and houses to stay in and much shuffling of an impressive, ledger-size diary.