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Geoff Boycott: A Cricketing Hero. Leo McKinstry
Читать онлайн.Название Geoff Boycott: A Cricketing Hero
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780007375448
Автор произведения Leo McKinstry
Жанр Биографии и Мемуары
Издательство HarperCollins
At the end of the 1960 season, ever more frustrated by his failure to advance, Boycott made another important move, switching from Barnsley to Leeds. With Headingley as its home ground, Leeds was more fashionable, more prestigious and, Boycott felt, more likely to bring him to the attention of the Yorkshire committee. Furthermore, there were two key players at Leeds who already knew him. The first was Johnny Lawrence, Boycott’s wily old leg-spinner coach. The second was Billy Sutcliffe, captain of Leeds, the son of the great Yorkshire and England batsman Herbert Sutcliffe and himself a former Yorkshire captain. Boycott later recalled that Sutcliffe offered to give him all the help he could in the development of his cricket, particularly by turning him into an opening batsman. ‘Until then, I had never opened the innings and I was somewhat nervous about it. But I thought, If he thinks I am good enough, there must be a chance. So I moved from Barnsley to Leeds and I never regretted it,’ Boycott said.
In a 1965 radio interview, Billy Sutcliffe recalled Boycott’s arrival at the club: ‘When Geoff Boycott joined me at Leeds in 1961 I rated him a good ordinary player of which there are hundreds in Yorkshire. I was soon to realize that this was no ordinary player. A more dedicated man I don’t think I have ever met. It used to be said that the great pre-war Yorkshire sides would eat cricket, drink cricket and sleep cricket. I think that sums up Geoff Boycott.’ Sutcliffe explained that in the run-up to the season, Boycott attended nets with Yorkshire in the afternoons and Leeds in the evenings, with the result that he regularly practised from one o’clock until nine at night. But Sutcliffe also perceived that there was a darker side to Boycott’s approach: ‘He hated getting out, in any cricket and at any score. On one occasion I think he hated me. I had been telling him how to hit the ball over the top of the bowler. In one match, he had scored about 80 when he tried this shot, only to be caught brilliantly at mid-on. I never saw that shot again from him.’
Boycott’s switch to Leeds soon began to pay dividends. He played well for the club – he topped the season’s averages – and also became a regular in the Yorkshire Second XI, finishing with 688 runs at 38.22, including 156 not out against Cumberland. The Second XI captain at the time, Ted Lester – later to become one of Boycott’s most loyal supporters in Yorkshire – wrote a far-sighted analysis of Boycott in his official report at the end of the 1961 summer: ‘This comparative newcomer to the side has shown considerable promise and his determined batting has been a great asset to the side. He is particularly strong off his back foot but I have the feeling that his very open stance is restricting his off-side play off the front foot. I shall be pleased if the coaches will give this matter careful consideration during the winter practices. When he has the confidence to play more attacking shots, I expect to see further improvement from him. Possesses a very good temperament, and has established himself as the best opening batsman in the side.’
Other problems were apparent, however. Boycott’s reputation as a poor runner between the wickets was already well advanced by now, thanks to some poor misjudgements in club cricket. Coupled with his ingrained moodiness, his unwillingness to take risks and his stance as loner, this ensured that he was not universally popular in the Second XI: ‘Even in those days,’ says Lester, ‘I had one of the second teamers come up to me and say, “We don’t want Boycott in our side. He just upsets people.” I replied, “Look, you needn’t worry because if I have any trouble from him, he’s out.” And I never did have any trouble. He was as good as gold. The one thing I will say, though, is that you had to know when to leave him alone. If he’d just got out, and you tried to talk to him, anything could happen. He was that upset.’ On his difficulties with running, Lester has this insight: ‘One of the reasons he ran people out was because he knew, if he were going to improve, he had to stay in the middle. So he made sure he didn’t allow himself to be run out. The other problem, probably his biggest fault, was that he liked to call at both ends. Some of the other players complained to me about his running and I said to them, “Well, it’s up to you. If he runs you out, you run him out next time.” But they never did; he was too cute for that.’
One of the Second XI players at the time was the future Nottinghamshire captain Mike Smedley, regarded by many as a better prospect than Boycott. As he explained to me, he experienced his share of difficulties in running with Boycott: ‘Often, when we were batting together, Geoff would be taking a short single off the fifth or sixth ball of the over and keeping the bowling. Sometimes they would be close calls, though I don’t think Geoff was the one in danger. When Brian Bolus came down from the First XI into the seconds, he was assigned to open with Boycott to try and sort him out, while I was dropped down the order. I don’t think Brian had much effect. It started to be a running joke in the Second XI.’
Like everyone else who encountered him, Smedley was struck far more by Boycott’s ambition than his ability. ‘He was not something particularly special but had to work hard at his technique. Initially, you got the impression he didn’t have many shots and would just work the ball around, though once he had gone to Leeds he became more confident. Yet there remained a streak of insecurity. Then, if he was out, he would sulk with a towel on his head. I just put it down to disappointment because he was so keen to do well but I think he should have grown out of it by then.’ Smedley recalls that Boycott was quiet, serious and intent on becoming a Yorkshire professional. ‘When we were staying in hotels during matches, he and I would wander around the town at night. But all he ever chatted about was cricket. He seemed to have no interest in girls or cars or anything like that.’
Rodney Cass, who first met Boycott at the Johnny Lawrence school, also played with him in the Yorkshire Second XI in the early sixties. ‘Technically, he was not a classical batsman then. He played very low, with low hands, mainly because Yorkshire wickets didn’t bounce much. We were taught to get our heads right over the ball when we played defensively.’ Peter Kippax, the Leeds and Yorkshire leg-spinner, recalls that in his Second XI days, Boycott could be a mixture of bombast at the crease and anguish at failure. In one match against Lancashire seconds, Boycott was due to open against the extreme pace of Colin Hilton. ‘I said to him: “Look, Geoff, Hilton is going to be a hell of a lot quicker than anything you’ve had before.”
‘ “Won’t be any trouble to me, won’t be any trouble. I can handle it. Don’t worry about me.”
‘So he’s facing Hilton in the first over. Second ball goes just past his nose. Third one tweaks his cap. Fourth ball, the stumps go flying in all directions. Geoff came back into the dressing room, put a towel on his head, sobbed his heart out. He could be very emotional, wore his heart on his sleeve.’
Throughout his time with Barnsley, Leeds and the seconds, Boycott continued to attend the Yorkshire nets, still organized by those stalwarts, Arthur ‘Ticker’ Mitchell and Maurice Leyland. Leyland and Mitchell had a soft-cop, hard-cop way of dealing with the colts under their command. Leyland, one of England’s great batsmen of the thirties, was the genial encourager of youth, while Mitchell was the barking taskmaster. ‘Well played, son,’ was Leyland’s line. ‘What sort of bloody shot do you call that?’ was the frequent barb to be heard from Mitchell. Little wonder, then, that so many youngsters tried to avoid the nets run by Ticker Mitchell. Yet his growling approach had a purpose: he was looking for character under fire. In fact, he reserved his most fearsome invective for those he most admired, precisely because he wanted to see if they were ready for the tough challenge of playing for Yorkshire. Jack Birkenshaw says of Mitchell: ‘He was seriously tough. He would rollick you most weeks. But you learned to respect why he was doing that – if you got through him and kept playing, you’d be a hardened Yorkshire cricketer.’
The promising Boycott, inevitably, received the full Mitchell treatment, his technique and temperament having excited the respect of the old drill sergeant. Fred Trueman later recalled the incident when Mitchell instructed him to give the bespectacled youngster a thorough test against genuine pace. ‘He told me: “Let him have it because I want to see what he’s really like.” Geoff came into the nets when I was warmed up and I started letting it go at him. I could see him getting into line, getting behind it. This went on for about twenty minutes until Arthur Mitchell came along and asked what