played and missed I was aghast: I didn’t expect to see an error from him and anything that passed the bat came as a big surprise.
I shared a third-wicket stand of sixty-one with him in the Second Test against New Zealand at Trent Bridge in August 1978. As I expected, he was very much the senior partner and this was the kind of occasion when he could be so good, talking to you, guiding you, keeping you going. He is so experienced, he has seen it all before and has consequently developed a great sense of anticipation.
Wind and weather, the number of overs bowled, the next fielding change, the next bowling change, how long to the interval, the state of mind of the opposing captain, of the opposing bowlers – all this is going on in Geoff’s computer brain while he is playing the very next ball strictly on its merits. Oh, and keeping an eye on his partner, too.
Once he is set into an innings nothing intrudes upon his concentration on the task of building a big one. If he senses that his partner is becoming restless, perhaps itching to have a whack, he will warn about taking risks; but he knows he cannot bat alone, though he likes some partners more than others. He doesn’t so much score runs as accumulate them – I think it was John Woodcock, in The Times, who named him The Great Accumulator. Geoff has the ability to wait, never becoming distracted, never wavering in his belief that if you stay at the crease the runs will come. At the same time he does harbour secret ambitions to play the cavalier. Those dreams sometimes surface, as when he told me: ‘I wish I could play like you, just go out there and cream it around.’
In Barbados once, I was sitting by an hotel pool sampling a pina colada, a sweet, sticky and potent rum-based drink popular in the Caribbean. Geoff took a sip, as he passed, screwed up his face and then, with that famous lop-sided grin, pronounced judgement: ‘No wonder you play like you do. If I drank that bloody stuff I’d play some daft shots too.’ I have admitted I wouldn’t mind some of his application for my game, but his is the last word: ‘If I could add your shots to my brain I would be an incredible player.’ The irony of all this steely joking is that Geoff Boycott has got the shots, but has revealed them to a select audience on very few occasions, a topic we’ll return to later.
I would love to add his self-control, his self denial and his technique to my game. There have been times when I’ve played as long an innings as Geoff and there are times, I admit, when I’ve given away a lot of hard work. My thoughts go back to Barbados and the last Test England played there.
Geoff had been given a torrid time by Michael Holding and wasn’t feeling too pleased (0 and 1 in the match) and was even less pleased to see me out playing a casual shot at Viv Richards, after battling it out for 54 in the second innings. But although he was far from happy himself we were able to talk quite openly about my dismissal and he told me he had noticed the signs of relaxation coming into my play. As soon as the fast bowlers had been rested and Viv had come on to bowl he thought that both Graham Gooch and I had eased up. In fact, in the context of a Test match, it wasn’t necessary to think in terms of taking runs off Viv. We were there to try to save the match, so the bowling of Richards had to be treated just as seriously as that of Holding. Both Gooch and I knew in our hearts that if Geoff Boycott had been batting at that time he would have come in to tell us about it at the end of the day. To Geoff a Test match is a Test match no matter who is bowling; a 100 always looks better than 50 and is certainly more valuable to the team. This Boycott attitude has rubbed off on some younger members of the England team, although none of us has been able to maintain his astonishing consistency.
I first toured with him in Australia in 1978–9 when he was going through a bad patch. His mother had died, Yorkshire had taken the captaincy away, he was given little peace by the media and in the circumstances it’s not surprising that he snapped a few times. He tried to reply, as always, through his bat, playing doggedly throughout and being shaken out of his depression, very often, by Ian Botham. Ian had decided, very early on, that he wasn’t going to take any elderly statesman stuff from the famous Yorkshireman. To Boycott’s surprise and then, I suspect, secret delight, Ian pulled his leg mercilessly, regularly addressing him as ‘Thatch’, in reference to his famous hair transplant. Geoff responded by nicknaming Botham ‘Guy the Gorilla’, one that has stuck and these two great players struck a merry relationship that served England well through many Tests. Now there isn’t a great deal of overt respect between them but, after India, they don’t take quite the same casual approach to each other either.
On that 1978–79 tour I had a fourth-wicket partnership of 158 with Geoff at Perth. I scored 102, Geoff 77 in seven and a half hours, but it was he who kept me going through that long day. England had lost 3 wickets for 41 and it was essential that Boycott stay there, as he did. I played a few shots and got to my 100 just before the close. As a young player it was the highlight of my career and I was feeling pretty pleased with myself, but I noticed he showed no signs of self-satisfaction. He wasn’t saying to himself ‘I’ve done well, I can switch off now.’ He was thinking about the next day.
Boycott’s ability to secure one end has been invaluable for both Yorkshire and England. When there is a strokemaker going well at the other end it’s a perfect partnership, but if Geoff bats with someone who is going through a sticky patch he tends to stagnate that much more. In those circumstances he will allow the bowlers to dictate to his partner. A batsman on form and well set should try to relieve the pressure by scoring runs, forcing the opposition to think again.
Back in England in 1979, Geoff and I shared 191 against India at Edgbaston. He began doggedly; he and Mike Brearley had done all the hard work – as he was quick to tell me – when I arrived at the crease. After that we had some good-humoured, friendly rivalry on a beautiful pitch against bowling that was fairly amiable, once the young Kapil Dev had rested. I tried to get my 50 before he reached his 100. If he hit a 4 I would try to hit one, or two; I saw this as something of a competition but it can’t have done him any harm, as he then began to open up and play a few shots himself.
We were to see him in an even better light on the 1979–80 tour of Australia. He was feeling happier for much of that tour and once again, as an England batsman, you knew you couldn’t say you had had a good day unless you finished with more runs than he did. What really jolted him then was to be dropped from the one-day side. This was the first World Series Cup, a triangular one-day contest with Australia and the West Indies, in which every match, especially those under the Sydney lights, seemed as hectic as a Cup Final. Geoff had to be recalled at Melbourne where he played very positively and showed he could slap the ball around. Then, at Sydney, in the next floodlit match, he was brilliant. He scored a devastating 105 off only 124 deliveries and made a fool of anyone who ever suggested he lacked the ability or the shots to score quickly. He may not have been too happy playing that kind of cricket but he did leave a huge Australian crowd gaping and gasping for more. It was such a shame that he played like that only when his place was in danger.
That was on 11 December 1979. A month later all had gone sour again. A violent thunderstorm flooded an unprotected Sydney Ground (the ground staff were celebrating New Year’s Eve) and, as several experienced observers predicted: ‘Whoever won the toss won the Test.’ Greg Chappell won and although Boycott didn’t want to play, complaining of a stiff neck, Brearley insisted, saying: ‘I don’t care if you are slightly unfit, I want you to play, I want you in.’ England were 1–0 down in a three-Test series and we needed to be at full strength. It was a dreadful wicket to bat on, Boycott getting 8 and 18, but his attitude was never of the best. It was a time he would like to forget and we with him.
I didn’t see much of Geoff in the next home series against West Indies, being dropped from the team after the First Test at Trent Bridge. But the West Indians did pay him the compliment of making him their prime target and we all admired the way he stood up to what must have been the most concentrated fast attack in history. He survived. At the age of forty he played through nine Tests against them, at home and in the Caribbean. Clive Lloyd knew very well that Geoff was always the stumbling block. There was much blocking and much more testing of that well-tried defensive technique: he batted on tremendously in his own style, got a century in Antigua and it was no exaggeration to call him the pillar of the team.
He also seemed to have accepted, philosophically, that his long-standing ambition to become England’s captain was unlikely ever to be fulfilled.