It was Jeff Thomson’s last Test and Gooch was his last Test wicket. The Australians did bowl very badly, no doubt about it, but they did it like that all through the series. Wisden editor John Woodcock - who died last July - noted that Australia made the same mistake in the last Test at the Oval. Woodcock said in his 1986 that he doubted whether the 1985 Australians would have finished in the first four in the County Championship of that year, and given that England won only one of 29 home Test matches in 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988 and 1989 combined, I have believed that the 1985 Australians were undoubtedly the worst Australian team to ever tour England. In fact, I have generally presumed that the 1985 Australians were the worst touring team from an established country since the 1962 Pakistanis who lost 0-4 and only once bowled England out for under 400. In a 2003 Guardian survey neither Peter Wynne-Thomas nor Steven Lynch noted the 1985 Australians as amongst the worst tourists, but I suspect their omission reflects lack of consideration of the poor quality of the England opposition noted in the previous paragraph, and/or overshadowing by the 1984 West Indians who won all five Tests.
