impression he made on me was just how selfish he could be. Of course all top sportsmen, whatever their level, need to have that quality, but in my opinion and in the opinion of many people who played with ‘Fiery’ over the years, Boycott simply went too far, too often.
The first time I had seen Boycott’s egotistical nature at work on the field had been during my Test debut at Trent Bridge the previous summer.
After we had bowled the Australians out for 243, we slumped to 34 for two in reply. Then Boycott played the ball straight towards a fielder he had not noticed in the covers and set off for a suicidal single, except that he had no intention of committing suicide. Derek Randall, playing at the other end and in front of his home crowd at Nottingham, had to selflessly sacrifice his wicket as the ball came in to the wicket-keeper, allowing Boycott to remain and go on to make what was admittedly a terrific hundred. Boycott’s attitude then, and forever after, was that as he was the best batsman in the side; whenever a similar situation occurred it was the other batsman who should be the one to sacrifice his wicket.
The first time that I personally came face-to-face with Boycott’s selfishness was on the initial leg of my first tour to Pakistan. It was during this series that Mike Hendrick and I roomed together, or should I say, ‘bathroomed’ together as that was where we spent most of our time, taking it in turns to crawl between toilet and basin. We had contracted amoebic dysentery, not a pleasant illness to have in the heat of the Pakistan, and although I’m not a whinger, from time to time it got so bad I never thought I would be able to wear light-coloured trousers again. At one point I actually thought I was dying. It didn’t help that we were hardly living in the lap of luxury when it came to some of the hotel accommodation. At least we were never lonely, as when we got to our room there were all kinds of pals around to keep us company such as rats, cockroaches and other local wildlife. On turning off the bedroom light, you could often hear them scurrying along the skirting boards, under the floorboards and behind the walls.
However, both Mike and I were determined to give it our best shot to try and establish ourselves in the side, and we attempted to pull the wool over the eyes of the management over the seriousness of our condition. Reporting for duty on the morning of the final warm-up match before the Test in front of the disbelieving selectors and physio Bernard Thomas, we managed about 50 yards of one lap around the ground before collapsing in a sorry heap.
And then came Boycott. He had got wind of the fact that Mike and I had begged our wives for and had received Red Cross parcels of tinned food to ease our condition. One evening there was a knock on our door. It was Boycott.
‘Hello, lads,’ he chirped. ‘I’ve got some Dundee cake here and I wonder if you would like to swap …’
He was unbelievable! Mike and I were going through hell and all the time Boycs had this little hoard of goodies stored away for his own consumption. Now, when he knew we had something to trade, it suddenly became available.
Being unable to get on the field and give it my all proved a great frustration for me, not least because, despite my successful introduction to Test cricket, I had found out that I still had something to prove to the man who mattered most. Just before going down with dysentery, I had had a private chat with Mike Brearley about my role on tour. I was full of myself and I wanted to be heavily involved yet I felt I was not really getting a fair crack of the whip. Brears simply informed me that he considered Chris Old as his premier all-rounder, and he had chosen to go with him. I told Brears that I didn’t agree with his assessment of our relative merits. But he was spared any further confrontation with me as the dreaded belly-bug laid me low.
In fact (and this is somewhat ironic bearing in mind what I have already said about Brearley’s influence on my career) it was not until he himself was out of the picture after returning home with a broken arm and Boycott had taken over as captain for the New Zealand leg, that I had my chance to get things moving again.
The first Test at Wellington was one of the strangest I have ever played in, and not simply for the fact that after 48 years and 48 Tests between the two countries it was the Kiwis’ first win over England. Strong winds blew throughout the match and these conditions seemed to affect our Geoffrey. After winning the toss he put New Zealand in and they made 228. Then when it came to our turn for a bat, I was witness to one of the most tedious innings I have ever seen in my life. Boycs’s 77 made on the third day went like this: 10 runs in the first hour, 12 runs in the second, 6 runs in the third (including a boundary), 12 runs in the fourth, Zzzzzzz. The innings lasted seven hours 22 minutes and he faced 304 balls. Call International Rescue.
As a team we must have been bored out of our minds because although we needed only 137 in the second innings to win we completely fell apart, scoring 64 all out to lose by 72 runs. In fairness, the main factor in the Kiwis’ first ever win over England was the brilliant bowling of Richard Hadlee, who took ten wickets for 100 in the match.
Boycott’s behaviour in the second Test at Christchurch was even more amazing. We were determined to level the series and I set myself to play a big innings. It was not the most spectacular of my career but my maiden Test hundred was one of the most satisfying. I was given tremendous support by our ‘keeper Bob Taylor who had been with me for almost five hours when I repaid him for all his efforts by running him out. I was on 99 when nerves got the better of me and I shouted for a suicidal single. After compiling a big first innings total, we just failed to enforce the follow on. But when we did eventually bowl New Zealand out we desperately required quick runs to give us enough time to bowl them out a second time and win the match.
As captain, Boycs knew more than anyone else exactly what was needed, but he was so wrapped up in his own performance that he singularly failed to get the scoreboard moving. Consequently, we only had about 20 runs on the board after 11 overs. Then things turned ugly after a disgraceful incident involving the Kiwi seam bowler Ewen Chatfield and Derek Randall. (Chatfield had nearly died on the field at Auckland on England’s visit in 1975 after being hit on the head by a bouncer from Peter Lever. The ball had smashed into his temple and fractured his skull. His heart actually stopped beating for several seconds and only prompt action by the England physiotherapist Bernard Thomas, who used mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and heart massage on the New Zealander, saved his life.) Sadly, Chatfield at that moment committed one of the cardinal sins of cricket. As he reached the wicket to send down a delivery, he suddenly stopped and nicked off the bails while Randall was backing up. As every schoolboy cricketer the world over knows, this is, as they say, ‘just not cricket’. It’s fair enough if the batsman is seeking to gain an unfair advantage by racing out of the crease too soon, but even then the normal procedure is to issue a warning before carrying out the threat to run him out if he tries it again.
This time Randall was just backing up in the normal way; the umpire had no option but to uphold Chatfield’s scandalous appeal and that was the spark for some bad feeling between the sides. When I got out to the wicket to join Boycott, having been promoted up the order to try and increase the scoring rate, I drew the attention of Chatfield to how we felt about what he had done.
‘Remember, mate,’ I said, ‘you’ve already died once on the cricket field. Anything can happen.’
But at that moment I also had another purpose in mind. Bob Willis, the vice-captain, had sent me out to the crease with the clearest, if most extraordinary of instructions.
‘Go and run the bugger out,’ Willis said.
As I arrived at the wicket, Boycs came up to me and moaned about how he was trying his best but he just couldn’t get the ball off the square. I told him not to worry and that I would sort everything out. So I did: I sorted him out by about ten yards. I hit the ball into the off-side and called him for a run. He never stood a chance. On being given out by the umpire, he just turned and looked at me blankly. ‘What have you done? What have you done?’ he mumbled as he walked past me back to the pavilion.
