ТОП просматриваемых книг сайта:
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
But, as so often with Boycott in a career of interwoven triumphs and disasters, he now had a stroke of good fortune. Vic Wilson announced his retirement in 1962 and Brian Close was appointed his successor. Close had a much more favourable view of Boycott. He told me: ‘When they made me captain after Vic left, I said to the committee, “Right, keep him and let me sort him out.” You see I realized that he had the ability to concentrate which you do not often find amongst young players. And he was so intent on improving. He spent all day long thinking about his game.’
Thinking about his game was exactly what Boycott did during the winter. Practising at the Johnny Lawrence school, he worked diligently on the deficiencies of his technique which had been so ruthlessly exploited by opposition bowlers, particularly a frailty outside the off-stump. The following summer, 1963, Boycott was a man transformed. After a hesitant start, he cemented his place with a wonderful innings against Lancashire in the Roses match at Bramall Lane, Sheffield. His 145, scored on a difficult pitch against top-class bowling, was not only his first century for Yorkshire but also a performance of such quality that the great cricket writer A. A. Thomson recorded: ‘Bramall Lane spectators, a craggy lot not easy to please, were unanimous in asserting that apart from half a dozen artistic masterpieces from Sir Leonard Hutton, this was the finest innings played by a Yorkshire batsman since the war.’ What made Boycott’s innings all the more admirable was that it took place when Yorkshire were in deep trouble against a Lancashire attack consisting of four future or present England bowlers: pacemen Brian Statham, Ken Higgs and Peter Lever, and the leg-spinner Tommy Greenhough, with 380 Test wickets between them over their careers. As Boycott walked to the wicket to join Bryan Stott, the scoreboard read 56 for 3. But the 22-year-old was undaunted. He was nursed through his early overs by Stott; then, once he was established, he broke loose and outscored the senior player with a series of flashing drives and cuts. He and Stott eventually put on 249 together and Yorkshire won the game by 10 wickets. As so often, Boycott took some of the gloss off his triumph with a tactless remark. ‘I got more than you,’ was the first thing he told his senior partner back in the dressing room. Stott was appalled, feeling the comment was stupid and childish. But, then, he was a successful businessman with his own electrical firm and a comfortable living. Cricket was a pleasure for him, whereas for Boycott it was an endless struggle – not just for his livelihood but also for self-justification.
This maiden century was followed by a string of good scores in June: 76 against Somerset, 49 not out against Gloucestershire, 50 against Warwickshire and, against Sussex in the Gillette Cup in front of a crowd of 15,000 at Hove, 71. This brilliant innings – in a losing cause – showed how far Boycott had developed as a stroke-player. Jim Parks, the Sussex and England wicket-keeper, recalls: ‘We had a good attack but Boycs was magnificent, played all the shots and had we not run him out I’m sure he would have gone on to win the match for Yorkshire. It was my first sight of him and he looked such a fine player that day.’
Boycott’s excellent run of form convinced him, in July 1963, to hand in his notice at the Ministry of Pensions in Barnsley and become a full-time cricketer. As he told his fellow civil servants, he was apprehensive about giving up a secure job in exchange for a precarious living as a sportsman. But it is wrong to exaggerate the risks he took. It was hardly as if the Barnsley branch of the Ministry of Pensions was the only occupation open to him. With his obvious intelligence and drive Boycott could have taken many other jobs if he had failed at Yorkshire. At the end of the 1963 season, for instance, Boycott quickly found a clerical position with the Yorkshire Electricity Board. This was, after all, the era of full employment – in July 1963, the number of registered unemployed stood at 494,000, a figure that any government today can only dream of. Furthermore, as soon as Yorkshire heard that he had left his job, he was offered a guaranteed payment – not a contract, Yorkshire never gave those until 1971 – of £16 a week in summer and £8 in winter, giving him some measure of security.
Yet the very fact that he had now to earn his living from the game reinforced his single-mindedness. Failure became even more unthinkable, dedication to his craft even more vital. Echoing in his head were the words of his former headmaster, Russell Hamilton, who had told him when Boycott sought his advice on becoming a full-time cricketer: ‘You should have learnt enough at school to know that if you want to go in for professional cricket, you have jolly well got to work at it, for it is a career.’ Never was a school-master’s warning more diligently heeded.
But his new status as a professional coincided with a brief dip in his form, as he was shuffled up and down the batting order. Throughout much of his time with Hemsworth Grammar, Ackworth, Barnsley, Leeds and the Yorkshire Second XI, Boycott had been an opening batsman, and in his first match against Pakistan in 1962 he had opened with Brian Bolus. His great recent success, however, had been achieved in the middle order. Now, in July, when he was asked by skipper Brian Close to open once more, he became anxious. Poor scores against Sussex and Surrey only seemed to confirm his doubts about the opening role, but his captain was unsupportive. Close says: ‘I asked him to open against Surrey at Bramall Lane and Geoff Arnold bowled him out for a duck. He came in and completely sulked. I gave him a right rollicking about it. I said, “Look, I’ve taken the decision to make you into an opening batsman because your particular temperament and approach fits it. Now, you go out and do your bloody best and try.” He was so sorry for his bloody self that he started to cry. But I made him realize that he had a job to do. I said to him, “Sympathy won’t get you anywhere.”’
Close was soon vindicated. Boycott, opening the innings against Warwickshire, scored 62 and 28, then scored his second century of the season, 113, in the Roses match at Old Trafford, batting for five hours without giving a chance – a rare double against the old enemy Lancashire. Then, at Sheffield for Yorkshire versus the West Indians he scored a brave 71 against the full might of the Caribbean attack, Wes Hall, Charlie Griffith and Gary Sobers. Even better followed in his first match at Lord’s, when Yorkshire played Middlesex. Boycott’s remarkable innings of 90 was made out of a Yorkshire total of just 144 against a new-ball attack, which included internationals Alan Moss and John Price. Boycott was bitterly disappointed not to have reached a century and, as usual, went into a sulk. But his astonishingly mature innings prompted that most perceptive of sports writers, Ian Wooldridge of the Daily Mail, to prophesy that he would soon become ‘a permanent opening batsman for England’.
Boycott rounded off this brilliantly successful first full season with the highest score of his career thus far, 165 against Leicestershire at Scarborough. He topped the Yorkshire averages – as he was subsequently to do in every single season until 1978 – with 1446 runs at 46.64, while he also finished second in the overall national batting averages. The conquering hero was wreathed in laurels. Yorkshire awarded him his cap. The Cricket Writers Club named him ‘Young Cricketer of the Year’, as did the Wombwell Cricket Society. Wisden said he was ‘easily the most successful batsman in Yorkshire and created a big impression with his reliability’. Former England all-rounder Trevor Bailey, still captain of Essex, was another to be impressed by Boycott. In Playfair Cricket Monthly he wrote this judicious analysis: ‘Geoff is clearly a dedicated cricketer, prepared to make any sacrifice that will help him succeed in his chosen profession. He has certainly remembered the advice of the old Yorkshire coach who used to say to his pupils, “Get your head over the ball and smell it.” I am sure that with his concentration and singleness of purpose, he will make many runs in the years that lie ahead.’
Test cricket could almost have been designed for Boycott. Technically and temperamentally, he was ideally suited to the five-day game. Grinding down the opposition, concentrating for session after session, guarding his wicket with an impeccable defence, this was what Boycott did best. He did not have to struggle with the artificialities of the county