Geoff Boycott: A Cricketing Hero

‘Fiver he’s not.’

Wooldridge was right. Immediately he was on the line to claim his money. On Sunday 31 May Boycott’s name was included in the twelve for the Trent Bridge Test against Australia. Boycott, understandably, confessed to some anxiety as well as pride. ‘Of course I’m on top of the world. A bit worried, too, because there is so much to gain and so much to lose by a place in the first Test against such a team as the Aussies.’ The chorus of congratulations was led by The Times, which described Boycott’s rise to Test cricket as ‘remarkable. This time last year he was hidden away at number six or seven, a little-known name. Now he is in everyone’s team. He looks, at 23, to have a productive career ahead of him.’

John Edrich had been chosen to open with Boycott, but on the morning of the Test he reported unfit, having trodden on a ball in the nets and twisted his ankle. It was too late to send for a replacement so when England won the toss and batted, Boycott went in to bat with a makeshift opener, Middlesex all-rounder Freddie Titmus. On seeing the bespectacled debutant, Bobby Simpson, the Australian captain, yelled across to his fast bowler Graham MacKenzie, ‘Hey, Garth, look at this four-eyed fucker. He can’t fucking bat. Knock those fucking glasses off him right away.’ Having ignored this greeting, Boycott was immediately involved in a run-out incident with Titmus. In one of the opening overs, Boycott pushed a ball from Neil Hawke on to the leg-side and called for a sharp single. As Titmus responded to the call, he collided heavily with Hawke, a powerfully built Australian rules player, who was charging down the pitch to retrieve the ball. Titmus went sprawling across the turf, far out of his ground, while Hawke lobbed the ball to the wicket-keeper Wally Grout. A run-out was a certainty, yet Grout, to the astonishment of his colleagues, refused to break the stumps. Instead, after a pause, he gave the ball back to Hawke. ‘Bloody hell, I thought this was a Test match,’ said Norman O’Neill, standing at cover.

Grout’s gesture rightly won him universal praise both at the time and afterwards. ‘It is doubtful if such exemplary sportsmanship has ever been exceeded in Test cricket,’ wrote Chris Clark, in his 1986 book The Test Match Career of Geoffrey Boycott. Such a claim ignores the truth that, only eight years later, in another Ashes Test, Boycott himself acted in exactly the same sporting way as Wally Grout. His forgotten act of chivalry took place during the first Test between England and Australia at Old Trafford in 1972. The circumstances were not dissimilar to the Titmus-Hawke incident. Australia were batting and Rodney Marsh, on 10 not out, hit a ball from Tony Greig to mid-on and started to run. But he collided with Greig as Boycott moved in from the leg-side to pick up the ball. Marsh could have easily been run out but Boycott refrained from throwing the ball to wicket-keeper Alan Knott. ‘Thanks, Fiery, you’re a gentleman,’ said Rod Marsh. Yet because of his reputation for selfishness and poor manners, Boycott’s action, unlike Wally Grout’s, is now barely mentioned in the cricket world.

Despite being reprieved by Grout, Titmus only made 16 before falling with the score on 38. Boycott, however, was still there, 23 not out, at the close of his first rain-truncated day in Test cricket. The next morning he continued for another hour before falling, only two short of his half-century, to a brilliant diving slip catch by Bobby Simpson off Graeme Coding. England then struggled to 216 for 8, when Ted Dexter declared, but, with the third day an even bigger washout than the first, the match drifted to a sodden draw.

Bad luck seemed to be hovering around England’s openers at Trent Bridge, for Boycott joined Edrich on the injury list when he broke a finger while fielding. The fracture ruled him out, not only of England’s second innings – Dexter opened with Titmus and they put on 90 – but also the Lord’s Test as well. He returned at Headingley, making 38 and four in England’s defeat. In both innings he was caught at slip off Corling, exposing a weakness against away-swing. In true Boycott fashion, he worked thoroughly in the nets on this deficiency, training himself to assess precisely which balls to leave and which to play.

Australia made the Ashes safe in a gargantuan but tedious run-fest at Old Trafford, what Peter Parfitt called ‘the most boring Test match I have ever played in’. Bobby Simpson hit 311 as Australia built up a mammoth total of 656 for 8 declared. England responded with 611, Barrington and Dexter both making big centuries. On a perfect pitch, Boycott might have been disappointed only to make 58, bowled by a MacKenzie leg-cutter, but at least he seemed to have conquered his problems outside the off-stump and had recorded his first Test half-century.

Boycott did even better when playing for Yorkshire against the Australian tourists at Bradford, hitting 54 and 122 against them. The latter innings, however, took place in highly controversial circumstances that reinforced Boycott’s growing reputation for single-minded obduracy. On the last day of the match, Bobby Simpson had declared, leaving Yorkshire a target of 323 in 260 minutes. But no attempt was made to go for the runs. Instead, after batting for nearly two hours, Boycott was only 32 not out, with the result that Simpson decided to humiliate him in front of the five thousand spectators by bringing every single fieldsman into a circle just five yards from the bat. Boycott’s response was aggressive. He immediately hit spinner Tom Veivers deep into the outfield; then, in the next he hooked Neil Hawke for six and drove him for four. Don Wilson, playing in the game, felt that the Aussies were just laughing at Boycott. ‘He’d been in for hours, block, block, block, so, to put it crudely, they decided to take the piss out of him,’ he says. But Boycott, through his ability to cope with this showy rebuke, may have enhanced his reputation with them. During the summer, Bobby Simpson expressed his admiration of Boycott, explaining that ‘he plays cricket the Aussie way’.

Only a few days later, at the Oval, in another drawn Test shrouded in Stygian gloom, Boycott gave the Australians a further display of his temperament by hitting his maiden Test century, a knock of 113 in England’s second innings. Shirley Western, his London girlfriend, well remembers his delight at the achievement. ‘We celebrated that night by going to the theatre in the West End to see Harry Secombe and Roy Castle in Pickwick. We were walking along Shaftesbury Avenue, and I suddenly said, “Look at the billboard: Boycott Makes Test Hundred.”

‘“I can’t believe, I can’t believe it,” he kept saying.

‘Then in the middle of the show, Harry Secombe stopped and said, “I’d like to say that we have a very special gentleman in the audience who got a hundred today against the Australians.” The whole audience clapped. Geoff was so embarrassed and proud. He had never been through anything like that. We went backstage afterwards, where Harry Secombe gave us all champagne. But Geoff wouldn’t drink any, saying he had to be at the Test again the next day. He was so shy and endearing.’

With John Edrich dropped after failures at Headingley and Old Trafford, this was also the first Test in which Boycott opened with Bob Barber, the dashing Warwickshire batsman who was to become one of his favourite partners. Both in background and approach to the game, the two could hardly have been more contrasting: Boycott, the miner’s son and cautious Yorkshire professional, whose determination to protect his wicket was matched only by his attention to his average; Barber, the Cambridge graduate backed by family money, who was as explosively indifferent to the reputations of bowlers as he was to his own statistics – ‘Cricket is far too absorbed in irrelevant numerals,’ he told me.

Yet they built up a mutual respect which has lasted to this day. Barber says: ‘I never had a problem with him. As far as I was concerned, he was a good fella to have at the other end. And I also felt that if someone wants to lead a quiet life, for God’s sake, just let them be themselves. Now, the cricket world, like most other worlds, is a small one with a small number of people. Certain things become received wisdom. So there was this idea that Geoff, because he was determined to get on, was selfish. Well, I can tell you, there was an awful lot of selfishness around then. The real problem with Geoff was that he was more honest than some others. He was quite open that he wanted to score so many runs or get so many hundreds. Many others felt the same but he talked about it and they didn’t.’

Nor did Barber have many difficulties in running with Boycott. They developed an understanding during the Oval Test when Barber made it clear that he would not tolerate Boycott hogging the strike by taking a single off the fifth or sixth ball of the over. ‘I simply refused to run when he shovelled the ball down to long-leg. Geoff pretty quickly got the message and, from then on, as far as I was concerned, I didn’t – until our last match together – have any problem. I would have actually said he was quite a good runner. And though he had a limited repertoire of shots, he was good to bat with because we could play off each other, left hand, right hand, attack, defence.’

Apart from his business interests, one of the reasons that Bob Barber retired from cricket when he was still at his peak was his disillusion with the shambolic way the English game was organized, even at international level. This was evident at that Oval Test in 1964: ‘I thought the whole England set-up was extremely amateur. Virtually no thought was given to tactics. Fifteen minutes before the start of the match, I didn’t even know that I was actually opening with Geoff. I was probably picked because I was opening for Warwickshire but no one had confirmed anything. So, just before the start of the game, I said to Willie Watson, one of the selectors, “Look, who’s going in first here?”

‘“You are.”

‘“Well, how am I expected to play?”

‘“As you feel like.’”

For Boycott, his Oval century proved that he had arrived as a Test-match opener. With 291 runs from four matches at an average of 48.50, he was, according to John Woodcock in the Cricketer, ‘the real find of the series. To say that he has something of Herbert Sutcliffe’s phlegmatic temperament is to pay him a high compliment. His batting does not give aesthetic pleasure so much as practical satisfaction.’ In the same magazine, the renowned Australian journalist and former Test star Jack Fingleton drew this conclusion: ‘Boycott is a good batsman. Whether he becomes more than that depends, I think, on whether he learns to use his feet down the pitch. He is so rigid in his defence that his back foot is anchored and he plays forward defensively with an exaggerated back slant of his bat. I foresee some nasty cracks on the hands against pace bowlers.’ It was this style of forward play that Boycott had been taught in Yorkshire, but Fingleton was proved absolutely right. Over the rest of his career, Boycott suffered more than his share of injuries to fingers, hands and wrists.

Boycott’s success with England was mirrored by an equally triumphant season with Yorkshire, topping the county’s averages with 1427 runs at 59.45. In the overall national averages he finished in fifth place, having completed 2000 runs in a season for the first time. His six centuries included a career best of 177 against Gloucestershire on a big turner at Bristol in September, an astonishing score given that the West Country batsmen could only muster 47 and 84 in both their completed innings. Boycott’s achievements in the 1964 season ensured that he was named one of Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Year, that annual certificate of excellence.

His successful first Test series also guaranteed his selection in M.J.K. Smith’s MCC party for South Africa that winter – the last official tour England made there before the era of apartheid came to a close. Boycott’s inclusion was one of the more straightforward decisions. In making some of the other choices, the pattern of the selectors’ thinking – in time-honoured English fashion – ranged from the dubious to the incomprehensible. No room, for instance, was found either for Tom Graveney or Colin Cowdrey, while the uncapped Cambridge student Mike Brearley was picked ahead of Test openers John Edrich, Mickey Stewart and Eric Russell. Much of the blame must be attached to the selectorial chairman, former Middlesex captain Walter Robins, an impulsive, often eccentric figure with a gift for self-publicity and a habit of frequenting the cinema when he was bored with the Test.

By the time of his MCC selection, Boycott had shown himself to be one of the best batsmen in the country. But the same could hardly be said of his fielding. For all his single-minded dedication, he had never given the same attention to this aspect of his cricket as he had to batting. And, surprisingly, Yorkshire gave him no coaching in this area. Jack Birkenshaw says that, in his early days, ‘He used to throw a bit like a woman. There was a touch of chucking the handbag about it.’ Once he had entered the England team in 1964, his fielding was nowhere near international standard, as was pointed out to him by selector Willie Watson. With characteristic application, Boycott returned to Yorkshire and, guided by batsman Ken Taylor, strove to improve his groundwork. Taylor explained to me how he assisted Boycott: ‘I used to drive him a lot to matches then because he didn’t have his own car. During the journeys, I would talk to him about fielding, explaining the importance of staying balanced, concentrating the whole time and trying to anticipate what shot the batsman will play. Once we arrived at the ground, we would practise for about forty-five minutes together, throwing the ball to each other. Geoff was always prepared to listen and learn. Though limited in ability, he had tremendous determination. Playing with him every day at Yorkshire I gradually saw his fielding improve till he became perfectly decent.’

Boycott’s two brothers, Peter and Tony, also helped him by giving him practice sessions in the field behind their Fitzwilliam home. Peter would keep wicket behind a single stump while Tony hit the ball in all directions for Boycott to chase. Peter recalls, ‘Geoff knew he had this flaw in his game, so he would practise for hours. And soon I could feel the difference in the strength and accuracy of his throws as the ball smacked into my gloves.’

Though he became a reliable fielder with concise movements, an accurate throw and a safe pair of hands, he was still sometimes let down by his lack of pace and power. Bob Barber remembers one incident during the 1966 Oval Test against the West Indies when Brian Close was captaining England for the first time. ‘McMorris, opening with Hunte, hit the ball to mid-wicket and Geoff had to go and fetch it. As he picked the ball up, the batsmen got into a terrible dither and both ended up at one end. Then all we got from Geoff was this lolloping, bouncing throw to the same end as the West Indian batsmen, so one of them easily made it back. Closey was absolutely livid and started to advance towards Geoff, uttering a fierce diatribe against him. And there was Geoff, retreating quickly into the outfield.’

Without any real competition, Boycott and Barber were certain to be England’s opening pair for the winter tour of South Africa, unless either was totally out of touch. In fact, there were some worrying moments for Boycott in the opening provincial matches, when difficulties over judging the line and length on the quicker overseas wickets led to him hurrying his strokes. From his first seven innings he scored just 151 runs. But then, as he adjusted, he ran into better form, hitting centuries in successive games. His good run continued in the Tests. His opening stand of 120 with Barber – he hit 73 to Barber’s 74 – helped to set up an innings England victory, the only result in the five-Test series. In the remaining quartet of draws, he also hit a match-saving 76 not out in the fourth Test at Johannesburg as England struggled on the final day to 153 for 6 and a century in the final Test at Port Elizabeth. His final average was 49.66, while his total tour aggregate was 1135.

This Test series also saw the first international wickets taken by Boycott. With an inexperienced attack stricken by injuries, England captain M.J.K. Smith was forced to turn to Boycott’s medium-paced inswingers in the third Test. The results were surprisingly successful. In the second innings Boycott sent down 20 overs and took 3 for 47, including the high-class wickets of Graeme Pollock and Colin Bland, both clean bowled. Altogether he sent down 61 overs in the series.

His bowling might have been a bonus, but it was his batting that really impressed captain M.J.K. Smith. ‘It was quite obvious he was a magnificent player,’ Smith told me. ‘People were already talking, when we went out, about Boycott being a little bit special and they were right. His technique was excellent, with no real weaknesses. He had this marvellous attitude for an opener, get out there, bat all day, and the next. He worked so hard at his game, very hard indeed.’ Smith found no difficulties in captaining Boycott. ‘Yes, he could be a bit defensive and he was hardly the life and soul of the party. Inevitably, the lads would take the mickey out of him, but that was just part and parcel of team spirit.’

Bob Barber believed that life on tour was more difficult for Boycott, who had never been abroad before this winter. The problem was made worse by the fact that the gauche, introspective young man was surrounded by hardened professionals. ‘If you get a group of fellows together – and you will have this as much on tour as anywhere else – you will often see that they find a scapegoat. That’s the impression I got with Geoffrey. He did not really fit in. With that lot, it wasn’t easy and Geoff did not involve himself in any way socially. I was perhaps the only person who tried to involve him by taking him out. Once, for instance, when we were in Durban, I was conscious of Geoff being on his own so I invited him to come with me up to a game park. He grumbled about not wanting to so I said, “Don’t be so bloody daft, get your camera and come on.” I think in the end he was quite vulnerable and shy, feeling that the world was against him.’

The camera Boycott took was a 16mm cine machine, which had been lent to him by Harry Secombe. As a first-time traveller, Boycott was keen to have a documentary record of his trip to South Africa. But his use of this equipment at the Test matches also provides an insight into his egocentric nature and his continuing hatred of failure, according to Rodney Cass, his old Yorkshire friend from the Johnny Lawrence school, who was coaching in South Africa that winter. Boycott showed Cass how to use the camera to take some film during the second Test at Johannesburg.

‘How much footage do you want of the game?’ asked Cass.

‘Oh, I only want me, you know, that’s all. As soon as I’m out, no more filming,’ replied Boycott. So Cass did as instructed and set up the camera in one of the stands to film Boycott. Unfortunately he was out almost immediately, caught behind off Peter Pollock. Cass stopped filming, and after an hour and a half he went to the players’ area to return the equipment. Through the dressing-room window he could see Boycott sitting on a bench with a towel on his head. M.J.K. Smith, the captain, told Cass it would be better to come back later. ‘So I waited another hour before returning. And when I did, there was Boycs, still in the dressing room covered in his towel.’

Boycott’s behaviour was regarded by some of his England colleagues as self-indulgent and self-centred. What Bob Barber felt was shyness and vulnerability, others saw as rudeness and irascibility. David Brown, also on his first tour, says: ‘He thought of nothing else other than Geoffrey Boycott and the rest of the world could go lose itself. He could be the rudest, the most ignorant man on God’s earth to people like waitresses, attendants or the public. If he’d had a bad day, then the world better look out. I remember at one game coming out of the ground and there were a lot of African kids collecting autographs with bits of tatty paper. He told them to clear off and then got in the car while I signed the lot. He was utterly self-centred and that was just part of his make-up.’ David Brown also roomed with Boycott on this tour: ‘I was fairly rough and ready in my methods whereas he was always immaculate. So one half of the room looked fine while the other was a mess. He didn’t want to socialize, preferring to be his own companion.’ Brown had a particular reason to feel aggrieved with Boycott on that tour: ‘We had a team Christmas party and both he and I were looking to go our separate ways after that. He came up to me and assured me that the manager, Donald Carr, had said that I could use his motor, as long as I dropped him, Geoffrey, where he wanted to go. So I did this, took the manager’s car, gave Geoffrey a lift, and then returned the car later. I never thought another thing about it until the following morning when the manager woke me up on the phone going completely berserk because he’d wanted his car all the previous day. Geoffrey had just stitched me up. He had told me a point-blank lie so that he would be driven somewhere. At first Boycs didn’t want to admit it, but once he did, he was quite open about it. You’d need to have a certain mentality just to do it. I had a laugh about it afterwards but Donald Carr took much longer to cool down. He was a very angry manager.’

Like so many others, though Brown was often annoyed with Boycott the man, he admired Boycott the cricketer. ‘From the word go, he was the sort of player you wanted in your side. You knew he would never throw his wicket away. As a bowler he gave you wonderful confidence because you knew you could usually stick your kit in the corner of the room and relax all day. He kept himself fit, never carried any weight. He was very careful with his diet, taking honey in his tea. If we were all having steak and chips for dinner, he’d have fish and salad.’

Vice-captain Ted Dexter, who flew out to join the MCC after standing unsuccessfully as the Tory candidate in Cardiff against Jim Callaghan in the 1964 general election, was shocked on his arrival to see how unpopular Boycott was with much of the touring party. He explained to me: ‘I arrived three weeks late to find that G. Boycott was totally – and I mean totally – ostracized by the other players. They would not bowl at him in the nets and there was no social contact whatsoever. Not knowing the form I felt it was a bit rough on a young player so I befriended the young Boycott and tried to help him through. In retrospect, I think that it would have been better had I not taken his point of view because he might have learnt a lesson there and then – the lesson that you are playing for a team and not just for yourself.’

Dexter says that he saw the worst of this attitude in the last Test at Port Elizabeth when he became Boycott’s first – but certainly not last – run-out victim in a Test match. In Dexter’s account, Boycott kept trying to retain the strike by taking a single at the end of each over. ‘Of course, the fielders started to get wise and were creeping in. Then Boycott called me for a run and I was flat out, head down, straight through. Yet Boycs hardly moved down the pitch at all. All he did was put his bat down to make sure he wasn’t out.’ Dexter feels that Boycott was a poor runner because he was unable to trust his partner. ‘When he was called for a single, Boycs was always looking out for himself to see if he liked the run first. Once that starts, there is never a relaxed feeling in the partnership.’

David Brown, watching from the pavilion, remembers the Port Elizabeth incident well. ‘That run-out was astonishing. Ted stood there in the middle, completely gob-smacked after Geoff dived past him to get in. He came back into the dressing room, sat down and said, “I really don’t believe what has just happened to me.” How Ted kept his cool I do not know.’

7 ‘Why the Hell Didn’t He Do That Before?’ (#ulink_99fae987-abba-55cc-9b11-64de06743185)

It is one of the many paradoxes of Boycott’s career that his greatest domestic innings should have also become a millstone round his neck. His volcanic 146 at Lord’s in the 1965 Gillette Cup final against Surrey, where he displayed every stroke on an awkward pitch and a damp outfield, was cited as an example of the way Boycott could play if the mood took him. From 1965 onwards every act of stonewalling was compared by his detractors to that exhilarating knock.

‘He was fantastic that day,’ says Don Wilson. ‘All of a sudden he was hitting the ball over mid-off and mid-on. We had never seen him lift the ball in the air in our lives. The shots he played were phenomenal. As he came off, the noise was amazing. Every person on the ground stood and applauded him. I couldn’t believe this was happening at Lord’s, normally a sedate place. The trouble is, people were asking, “Why the hell didn’t he do that before?”’

Boycott’s innings was all the more extraordinary because it took place at the end of a disappointing season for him, which saw him lose his place in the England side and fail to score a first-class century. After almost two years of rapid advance, Boycott’s progress in professional cricket ground to a halt. True, he topped the averages once more for Yorkshire, but this time with a figure of just 34.88 from 942 runs. Overall he fell from fifth to fifteenth in the national averages, with 1447 runs at 35.92.

In the Test matches his final record was equally modest. This was the first summer in which England hosted twin series, with New Zealand and South Africa the visitors. In the opening Test of the season, against New Zealand at Edgbaston, Boycott hit 23 and 44 not out in a nine-wicket victory, though the two main talking points were the icy weather – hot drinks had to be served twice during the second day – and Ken Barrington’s painfully slow century. His 137 took 437 minutes, including an excruciating spell when he remained on 85 for 20 overs. As a result of his stagnation, he was dropped for the second Test as a punishment, exactly the same fate Boycott suffered two years later over his perceived tardiness in compiling a double century against India. ‘Brighter cricket’ was the slogan taken up at this time by the English cricket authorities, worried by dwindling gates and declining popularity. It is telling that Boycott and Barrington should have the same cautious, hard-nosed approach to batting. Both had had a tough upbringing – Barrington was the son of a soldier and first worked in a garage – which compelled them to eschew frivolity and to treat their chosen profession more seriously than most.

Boycott played an important role in England’s victory in the second Test at Lord’s, scoring 76 as England went after a target of 215 in the final innings. They won by seven wickets with only fifteen minutes to spare, their run-chase made more difficult by the loss of five hours through rain on the last two days. Having missed the third Test at Headingley due to a shoulder injury – his replacement John Edrich hit a record-breaking 310 not out – Boycott returned against South Africa at Lord’s. But the Yorkshire opener was unable to re-establish his rhythm, scoring 31 and then a wretched 28 in 105 minutes in the second innings as England struggled to a draw after being set only 191 in four hours. Following the Barrington precedent, there was talk of dropping Boycott as a disciplinary measure, with some outspoken critics even arguing that his innings had cost England victory. In an interview with the Daily Express, Boycott explained his philosophy of batting: ‘If the selectors want to drop me, that’s their business. I am not the world’s greatest cricketer. I never will be. But I think I am good enough to open for Yorkshire and England. If I am going on playing for England my attitude to opening the innings will not change. I simply believe the job of the opener is to knock the shine off the new ball by cracking it solidly in the middle and trickling the runs along without taking swipes or risks.’

The selectors reprieved Boycott, but not for long. In the second Test at Trent Bridge, though he did some useful bowling – in one spell in South Africa’s second innings he delivered 19 overs for just 25 runs – he gave another dismal performance with the bat. Out for a duck in the first innings, he was almost strokeless in the second as England wickets fell all around him. After two hours 20 minutes at the crease for just 16 runs, he was finally bowled by left-arm spinner Athol McKinnon. Even the normally measured tones of Wisden described this as a ‘dreadful effort when courage was needed’.

Boycott’s sacking was now inevitable, and for the final Test at the Oval he was replaced by Eric Russell of Middlesex. But the selectors were not so disillusioned as to exclude him from the MCC party for the Ashes tour to Australia that winter, and was picked along with three other openers: Barber, Edrich and Russell. Not all the press were happy about the Yorkshireman’s methods. J. J. Warr (who played his only two Tests as a Cambridge undergraduate on the 1950/51 tour) wrote in the Cricketer: ‘Boycott has transformed the admirable quality of determination into a fetish. Every wicket he plays on is made to look difficult and batsmen later on in the order frequently get themselves out trying to compensate for his slowness. His second innings at Nottingham was exquisitely painful to watch.’

There could hardly have been a more thundering riposte to such comments than Boycott’s legendary Gillette innings in September. As with so many matches in the 1965 season, the final was played in damp conditions that were expected to help the bowlers. With his usual vividness, Don Wilson described to me the build-up to the game: ‘We set off from Scarborough the day before in torrential rain. By the time we got to Lord’s to leave off our bags that evening, the ground was saturated. Lord’s used to have the Tavern pub at the bottom of the slope, with some white railings in front of it. And I can tell you, the water had reached the top of those railings. It seemed that there was no way that Yorkshire, or anybody, were going to play in any final the next day.’ That night, the entire Yorkshire team – apart from Boycott, of course – set off for a night of revelry in the West End, starting with The Black and White Minstrel Show at the Victoria Palace and ending in Snow’s Hotel on the Cromwell Road. But the next morning, there was blazing sunshine and the only sign of the heavy rain the night before was the bags of sawdust everywhere. Wilson recalls: ‘We had quite a few hangovers round the dressing room. To our horror, we were told that play would soon be under way.’

Fortunately for the groggy players, Surrey won the toss and put Yorkshire in to bat. Unsurprisingly, given the wetness of the outfield and the quality of the new-ball bowling from David Syndenham and Geoff Arnold, openers Boycott and Ken Taylor made a sluggish beginning. Only 20 runs had been scored from 12 overs, when the first wicket, Taylor’s, fell. This start was what Surrey supporters had predicted. It was joked at the Oval that all their team had to do to lift the trophy was to keep Boycott batting at one end. But the game was transformed when Yorkshire captain Brian Close strode to the wicket. Suddenly, quick singles were taken, then Boycott began to hit out all around him, despatching Syndenham over square leg and driving Arnold straight for six into the pavilion. By the end of his innings of 146 he had hit three sixes and 19 fours, putting on 192 with Brian Close and ensuring that Yorkshire had made an unassailable total of 317 for 4. With Ray Illingworth taking 5 for 29, Surrey were shot out for just 142. As Yorkshire picked up their first limited-overs trophy, Boycott was the only possible choice for the Man of the Match award.

Boycott has always emphatically denied the claim that it was a lecture from Close, delivered on his arrival at the crease, that galvanized him into action. In his Autobiography he wrote: ‘So far as I am concerned, at no time did Close tell me to get on with it, or anything remotely similar. The myth about my attitude and motivation that day supports the image of a bold, decisive captain dominating a reluctant subordinate by the force of his personality – but not once did he threaten or cajole me into playing the strokes I played.’

Yet the version Close gave me is very different: ‘I’m out there and straight away I get stuck into Boycs: “Come on, you’ll run when I tell you to bloody run. Now let’s get a move on.” I threatened to wrap my bat round his bloody neck. Soon we were getting three or four singles every over and the field started to creep in to close us down. So I said, “Listen, Boycs, if there’s anything up, just bloody belt it.” Next ball from Geoff Arnold, he cracked it through extra cover for four. No one had ever seen him hit the bloody ball off the square. The spinner came on and I said to him now, “Look, they’re all expecting you to push the bloody ball back. Hit it anywhere from long on down to deep square leg.” He smashed three in a row. He had never played like that before. The whole point was that it was a cup final. I had to take away from him the worry about getting out. I forced him to do it by relieving him of responsibility. If he got out, he had an excuse. He could say, “It’s the captain’s fault.’”

Apart from this famous knock, 1965 was a pretty miserable season for Boycott. And his problems continued when the MCC tourists set out for Australia under M.J.K. Smith almost two months later. First of all, he developed a severe bout of gastro-enteritis after a stop-over in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, thereby justifying all his fears – often sneered at by his critics – that the childhood loss of his spleen had left him prone to infection in south Asia. While the rest of the team flew on to Perth, he was detained in a hospital in Singapore. Even when he caught up with the MCC, he was plagued by another medical ailment, sciatica, which had developed as a result of the injections administered by Singapore doctors. This meant he could only play in two of the six first-class matches in the run-up to the opening Test. One of the visitors he received while he was laid up in an Adelaide hospital was that grandest of correspondents E. W. Swanton. As he wrote in Swanton in Australia, he was immediately struck by Boycott’s passion for his job: ‘Visiting the patient, I came to know a zeal for playing and making runs that was more intense than I have ever encountered. The pain at missing this first chance of an innings was clearly far harder to bear than that of sciatica.’ As if to echo Swanton’s view, when the MCC party were asked by immigration authorities on their arrival in Ceylon to make a written declaration of the purpose of their visit, fourteen players wrote, ‘To play cricket’; Bob Barber said ‘Holiday’; Boycott just put ‘Business’.

His clinical single-mindedness, however, did not always endear him to the other players on this tour. Jim Parks was a room-mate for part of it. ‘We used to have to share Boycs out a little bit – he wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea. I remember Kenny Barrington once said to me, “I don’t think I can handle a whole tour with him.”’ The touring party had a Saturday club, where two barmen would be appointed to make sure that everyone’s glass was full. Parks continues: ‘Geoff, of course, didn’t drink much. All he would have was Cinzano, so getting him a bottle of that could be a bit awkward if you were the barman. Fine, he didn’t want to drink a lot and he was his own man. But the real problem was that all he wanted to do was talk about himself. So when you came back into the room, it was all about how Geoff had played and, really, at eleven o’clock at night, you didn’t want to hear this. He wasn’t my type of person. I enjoyed a few beers and a good night’s sleep. That said, I got on all right with him, didn’t mind sharing with him.’