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       8 ‘A Great Score, in Anyone’s Language’

      Today, given the intensity of international competition, it might seem ridiculous that an England cricketer could be dropped after hitting a double century in a Test match. But that is what happened to Geoffrey Boycott in June 1967, when he scored 246 not out in almost ten hours against India at Headingley, then was excluded from the next Test.

      Boycott’s Headingley marathon was deemed to have contravened the new ethos of ‘brighter cricket’ and the selectors decided he had to be punished. What particularly aggrieved them was his batting on the first day. In a full six hours’ play, he had made only 106 runs, failing to accelerate even after tea. In the first hour, he hit just 17 runs, followed by eight in the second, 15 in the third, 23 in the fourth, and 21 and 22 in the last two hours. Moreover, he was playing on an excellent pitch against an appallingly weak Indian attack, which was barely of county standard to begin with and plunged below minor counties level in the afternoon, thanks to injuries to medium pacer Rusi Surti (bruised knee) and the left-arm spinner Bishen Bedi (torn muscle). Boycott’s inertia drove hundreds of his own Yorkshire spectators to leave the ground after tea although he was near his century, while even a sympathetic journalist like Ian Wooldridge wrote in the Daily Mail that his last three hours at the crease ‘could not be excused by his nearest and dearest relations’. Far from mitigating his crime, his freer approach the next day, when he added 140 runs in less than four hours, appeared to prove that he could score more quickly if he wanted to. For Boycott’s enemies, the Headingley innings revealed the very essence of the man, a selfish player focused entirely on his own performance rather than on the interests of the team or the entertainment of the public.

      Yet the absurdity of Boycott’s suspension was that his double hundred, far from undermining England’s cause, had helped them win by six wickets well before tea on the last day. Test openers are supposed to lay the foundations of a big score – and that was exactly what Boycott had achieved. As the great off-spinner Lance Gibbs told Boycott after his suspension was announced: ‘If you had been a West Indian, you would have been a hero. No West Indian would ever get dropped for making a double century.’ In truth, the selectors’ decision was motivated more by public relations than by cricket. The media were baying for action against Boycott and the selectors felt they had to be seen to do something. But their gesture looked both panic-stricken and patronizing – in effect, the Indian tourists were being told that their Tests should be treated as little more than exhibition matches.

      There were other powerful arguments in Boycott’s defence. He had been in poor form in the run-up to the Test, making only two scores of over 50 in his previous twelve first-class innings. On the first morning he displayed his lack of touch by continually playing and missing. Instead of throwing away his wicket, however, he battled through the crisis, hitting himself back into form by grinding out the runs. His more vigorous strokeplay on the second day was the result not of a whimsical change of mood but of the renewed confidence that came with a century. England’s captain Brian Close recognized the difficulties of Boycott’s position, writing later: ‘You had to admire the sheer guts of a man so palpably out of form yet so desperately trying to fight his way out of his bad spell.’ Close wanted to keep Boycott in the side but was outvoted four to one by the other selectors, Doug Insole, Peter May, Alec Bedser and Don Kenyon. ‘I said to them, “Look, I’ll give him a right bollocking and tell him not to let it happen again.” But the selectors replied that such was his selfishness that it could not be tolerated. So that was it,’ Close told me.

      One of the central charges against Boycott was that he had ‘wilfully disobeyed his captain’s orders’. Boycott has always maintained that he never received direct instructions to speed up. His version appears to be backed by Close and, even more explicitly, by one of his batting partners, Basil D’Oliveira. Close’s recollection is that he merely said to Boycott at tea that he should see if he could open up, though he should not do anything foolish. Later he went on to the balcony to try to catch Boycott’s attention but he admits that Boycott was concentrating so hard that he probably did not see him. In his autobiography Time to Declare, D’Oliveira wrote that on the second morning, chairman of selectors Doug Insole came into the dressing room ‘to read the Riot Act’ and tell the batsmen to give the crowd something to enjoy. ‘When it was time to go out to the middle, Boycs led the way and our skipper, Brian Close, said to me just as I was leaving, “Tell Boycs to take no notice, just play his natural game.”’

      For a sensitive cricketer, who always took immense pride in his professionalism, this rejection was a shattering blow. For the remaining twenty seasons of his first-class career, the selectors’ decision rankled with him, a stain on his reputation that could never be blotted out by all his many achievements. Just after his retirement, he told the BBC broadcaster Peter Jones: ‘It is a stigma I will always carry. Brian Clough says to me, “Try and forgive them but don’t ever forget.” Well, I won’t forget and I can’t forgive because I think it was an unnecessary thing to do.’ Some commentators, who refused to be caught up in the hysteria over ‘brighter cricket’, agreed. John Woodcock wrote in the Cricketer: ‘The credit he deserved was simply for pursuing the objective he set himself so successfully. In anyone’s language it was a great score and I expect that one day, in more taxing circumstances, England will be indebted to him for his obduracy.’

      For Boycott, the verdict was as unjust as the one he received in a French court more than three decades later. But resilience in a crisis has always been one of his virtues. Publicly he put a brave face on his humiliation. Brian Close wrote later that he was a ‘model of restraint. For the next few days I never ceased to admire the control he displayed in what was obviously a very trying time for him.’

      Nevertheless, the decision appeared to affect his batting for the rest of the summer. He only played in two more Tests, one against India and the other against Pakistan, failing to distinguish himself in any of his four innings. It was a throat infection that kept him out of the third Test against Pakistan, while a personal

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