Biography Geoff Boycott

Geoff Boycott was born in Fitzwilliam in Yorkshire and began playing for his home county in 1962.

geoff-boycott He began his Test career only two years later, in the first Test of the summer against Australia. Over the next 18 years he scored 8,114 runs in 108 Test matches for England. He was the first England cricketer to pass 8,000 Test runs and is still fourth on England's all-time run scoring list (behind Graham Gooch, Alec Stewart and David Gower). His average of 47.73 runs over 193 innings is better than any other England player since 1970. His Test career included 22 centuries (an England record that he holds jointly with Wally Hammond and Colin Cowdrey). On 11/12 August 1977 he scored 191 against Australia in the fourth Test at Leeds, becoming the first cricketer to score his one hundredth first class century in a Test match. Boycott reached the milestone with a characteristic drive off Greg Chappell through mid-on for four.

Boycott Controversy

Boycott was always a controversial figure. His highest Test score was 246 not out in June 1967, but he was dropped for the next match for slow scoring (even though England won comfortably by six wickets). He spent three years from 1974-77 in self-imposed exile from the England team. He claimed he had simply lost his appetite for Test cricket but the move may also have been linked to the appointments of Mike Denness and then Tony Greig as England Captain in preference to him. Critics claimed the period of exile enabled him to avoid fast-bowlers Dennis Lillee, Jeff Thomson, Andy Roberts, and Michael Holding at their peaks, but he came back to face the West Indies pace battery at its most fearsome in the late 70s and early 80s.

His batting style gained a reputation for being dour and dogged, and for thus reflecting his personality. He became renowned for his ability to occupy the crease for hours, boring spectators and opponents with his defensive style of play. He was capable of attacking play, scoring a match-winning 146 for Yorkshire in the 1965 Gillette Cup final.

In Barbados in January 1974, playing for the touring England XI, he scored a career-best 261 not out against a West Indies Board President's XI including Andy Roberts and a young Michael Holding.

In his "comeback" Test against Australia at Trent Bridge in 1977 he famously ran out Derek Randall in front of his home crowd before going to make a century. In this match, in which Ian Botham made his England debut, he confirmed his ability to occupy the crease by batting on each of the five days of the match: his first innings 107 started at the end of the first day, he batted throughout the second day and was dismissed on the third day; he started his second innings at the end of day four and batted throughout England's successful run chase scoring 80 not out. Among England batsmen, only Allan Lamb and Andrew Flintoff have emulated this feat of batting on all five days. Boycott scored his hundredth first class hundred at Leeds later in that series.

Boycott - Vice Captain

Appointed vice-captain for the ensuing tour of Pakistan and New Zealand that winter, Boycott took over as captain in 1978 for two Tests when Mike Brearley was injured. In one match, the rest of the team in the pavilion decided that Boycott was scoring so slowly that he was in danger of costing England the match; Botham ran him out, later claiming in his autobiography that he had done it deliberately. Indeed, some have suggested that this was a team order.

Against Australia at Perth in 1979-80, he became the first man to be marooned on 99 not out in a Test when he ran out of partners.

In 1982 at Edgbaston he provided the rare spectacle of an established batsman being junior partner to a tail ender, when he and Graham Stevenson added 149 for Yorkshire's tenth wicket against Warwickshire; Stevenson scored 115 of them.

As well as a batsman, Boycott was also a medium-pace bowler, often bowling while wearing his cap turned back-to-front, but was never a genuine all-rounder. He took seven wickets at Test level at an average of 54.57.

The "controversial" tag for Boycott comes from many incidents spread over his playing career, but two in particular stand out. During an England tour of India he claimed that he was too ill to field in a Test Match, but it was later discovered that he was playing golf while his teammates were still out on the field; this led to being dropped from the side

In 1982 he was instrumental in organizing, in defiance of a United Nations and TCCB ban, a so-called "rebel" tour of apartheid South Africa by 13 current and former England Test cricketers who were almost all nearing the end of their careers. All the players were banned from international cricket for three years as a result.

Boycott as Commentator

As a commentator Boycott has renewed his renown, with his 'pull-no-punches' style in contrast to the 'let's-try-not-to-offend' style of most of his fellow commentators. In particular he is known for criticizing players. Once, after witnessing a dropped catch, he said "I reckon my mum could have caught that in her pinny", and in 2005 he mocked the Australian captain Ricky Ponting for electing to bowl first on a flat track, saying he was a "nice man" for being so generous to the England team. Another feature of Boycott's commentaries was his pre-match pitch report, in which he would stick a key into the wicket and assess its qualities (moisture and hardness). However due to a change in the cricket laws, this is no longer permitted.

Cricketers

List of Cricketers

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