Geoffrey Boycott Trivia

1. The scene is the WACA stadium at Perth, during the 1979-80 England tour of Australia. What unusual feat did Boycott achieve on this ground in the First Test of the three-match series?

From Quiz The Test Career of Geoffrey Boycott [3]

Answer: carried his bat through an England innings

Here was a match which England could have won after skipper Mike Brearley's bold decision to put Australia in on the first morning - the home side were struggling at 127-5 in mid-afternoon - but in the end the tourists lost by 138 runs, in spite of Boycott's heroic second-innings effort, which lasted more than six hours. Boycott finished with 99 not out - the first time this exact score had ever been registered in a Test match, although a few other players have recorded it since. Bob Willis, England's No. 11, could not stay with his senior partner long enough to see him through to three figures - but the real blame lay with the specialist batsmen, some of whom let Boycott down by getting out to loose strokes at critical moments. "Geoff did his job superbly," commented Brearley after the game,"but we didn't do ours." Or in the words of Wisden, "Only Boycott showed the technique and determination needed to survive." England also lost the other two Tests of this three-match rubber (which, for various reasons, was not accorded Ashes status) but they were at the receiving end of some controversial umpiring decicions - more than once involving Greg Chappell, Australia's captain and star batsman, who seemed to lead a charmed life at the crease.

From Quiz The Test Career of Geoffrey Boycott [1]

Answer: Bobby Simpson's Australians

Showing good form on his first Test appearance, Boycott put together a solid 48 on the opening day before being paranormally caught at first slip by Simpson, who specialised in hanging on to highly unfeasible catches. I've been watching some video footage of Boycott's debut series and I must say, he looked every inch an England batsman right from the word go. Australia won the rubber 1-0, but a new English star was born that summer. "This young man is very strong off the back foot," purred Denis Compton from the BBC commentary box at Leeds.

From Quiz The Test Career of Geoffrey Boycott [3]

Answer: Ian Botham

Boycott had wanted the England captaincy badly since at least 1973 and was considered by many (including, of course, himself) to be the person best qualified for the job, but it seems that the board of selectors (and in particular their long-serving chairman, the unflappable Alec Bedser) had decided a long time before this that the Yorkshireman was a hopeless loner whose behaviour under extreme pressure was dangerously unpredictable. (The selectors were not always unanimous in these matters, however: Boycott's old Test buddy John Murray had resigned from the panel in protest in the autumn of 1978 after his one-time teammate was deprived of the England vice-captaincy.) All this led to Botham's being thrown in at the deep end as skipper against Clive Lloyd's all-conqueroring West Indians, and the extra pressures of captaining the side against such ultra-powerful opposition certainly seemed to affect the brilliant young player's batting form, which returned in 1981 immediately after he relinquished his extra burden. Boycott was a key player in Botham's team, and he played his heart out as always. England lost the summer series only 1-0, and nobody will ever know if the extra expertise that Boycott would have brought to the top job might not even have tipped the end result in England's favour. Boycott would also have had his say in selection meetings, without any doubt: he is on record as commenting, for instance, that he thought the selectors had made a pretty good blunder in dropping the classy Kent batsman Bob Woolmer from the England squad after only two Tests of the summer, and then not even bringing him back for the Caribbean tour which followed, when several players of lesser ability were chosen.

From Quiz The Test Career of Geoffrey Boycott [1]

Answer: M.J.K. Smith

Boycott played some crucial Test innings on both tours, first in South Africa and then the following winter in Australia. I read somewhere that the young Yorkshire opener, who played in glasses in those early days, was inspired by the example of the bespectacled Smith captaining Warwickshire and England quite successfully without any apparent discomfort. England won a hard-fought series in South Africa 1-0, and drew 1-1 in Australia. The Oxford-educated Smith, who played his cricket rather in the manner of an absent-minded professor, used Boycott creatively as a first-change bowler on both of these tours - a tactic which enabled both of England's quality off-spinners, Fred Titmus and David Allen, to be fitted into the Test team together. Although he has always been very modest about his seam-bowling skills, Boycott responded by taking several useful wickets in both rubbers.

From Quiz The Test Career of Geoffrey Boycott [3]

Answer: by scoring a century

There was some excellent cricket played in this historic game by both sides, in particular by the young Australian vice-captain Kim Hughes (who batted beautifully for 117 and 84), but the captains were not prepared to take risks and persistent rain over two days - and then a waterlogged outfield - curtailed play and, together with Boycott's dogged resistance, ensured a draw. Boycott top-scored in both England innings, playing the fast men Lillee and Pascoe more confidently than anybody else in the England camp. Sadly, this match is more likely to be remembered for an unsavoury incident in which Umpire David Constant was physically assaulted in the members' enclosure by a man protesting about delays to the restart of play. After Constant had been rescued by the two captains, the Australian skipper Greg Chappell - revealing a hitherto unsuspected sensitive side to his nature - complained about having been "embarrassed" by some of the strong language used by angry MCC members during this incident. They're an eccentric bunch, these Lord's members: it is said that some of them used to get down on their knees before the start of every Test match in which Geoffrey Boycott was due to play, and pray to the God of Cricket for his early dismissal. Well, at least they never did him any physical harm.

From Quiz The Test Career of Geoffrey Boycott [2]

Answer: 99 & 112

On a wicket which seemed to inhibit free-scoring strokeplay, Boycott's two dour and determined innings held England's batting together like glue and, backed up by some inspired off-break bowling from the versatile Tony Greig (who took 13 for 156 in the match against the opposition's star-studded batting line-up), kept England in the game. In the end England won the match by just 26 runs and in doing so levelled the series 1-1, much to the consternation of the Trinidad crowd who had certainly not been expecting anything like that to happen.

From Quiz The Test Career of Geoffrey Boycott [1]

Answer: dropped from the side for slow scoring

Ironically, Boycott's run-rate during his Headingley innings (in a match which England eventually won by six wickets) was relatively brisk compared to some of his later Test batting marathons, for which he received no punishment. The selectors argued that the Indian bowling was gentle enough for a more aggressive innings to have been played. Boycott was reported to have been "gutted" by their decision.

From Quiz The Test Career of Geoffrey Boycott [3]

Answer: by scoring a century

The honour of scoring the first Test century at St John's went to Northamptonshire's Peter Willey on the first day: he played brilliantly, but since he was batting down at No.7 he predictably ran out of partners soon after reaching three figures. Boycott's 104 not out came in the second innings as he and Gooch (83) ensured a comfortable draw. Except for his double failure in Barbados, Boycott - who had just turned 40 when the tour began - scored good runs in all the Tests and won praise for his cricket from all quarters, including from some of his former critics.

From Quiz The Test Career of Geoffrey Boycott [1]

Answer: Colin Milburn

This was the perfect start for England in this match, as they needed to restore some pride after having performed dismally in the previous Test at Old Trafford. Outscoring his partner 2 to 1, Milburn cut and pulled his way to 83 before being memorably caught by Doug Walters in front of the Members' Stand going for another big hit. England then bowled and fielded like demons when Australia batted, forcing the visitors to follow on but being denied victory when rain washed out the end of the game. Milburn's cricketing career was sadly cut short by a car accident in the spring of 1969, just as he looked as if he might enjoy a long England stint as Boycott's perfect foil.

From Quiz The Test Career of Geoffrey Boycott [3]

Answer: Keith Fletcher

Fletcher, "the Essex Gnome", captained England in India and Sri Lanka in 1981-82, but did not particularly endear himself to the Indian crowds either by his introverted manner or by his negative tactics on the field, especially after England had lost the First Test at Bombay by 138 runs. It was a low-scoring game, which they should have won. This match was poised in England's favour after the painstaking efforts of Boycott and his snail-paced understudy from Kent, the slow-scoring Chris Tavaré - "a worse version of me", as the Yorkshireman remarked grimly. The dedicated pair had, in making the two top scores of the match (60 and 56 respectively), put together a solid second-wicket stand of 92 in England's first innings, only to see their teammates fritter away the edge thus gained (aided, admittedly, by one or two grotesque umpiring misjudgments in India's favour). The sight of two such slow batters occupying the crease for hours together - even if they were helping to edge England into a good position - was too much for the late great Denis Compton, covering the series as a journalist, as he prepared his evening copy for a British tabloid newspaper. "Never again!" he spluttered over his vindaloo, "never again must Boycott and Tavaré be allowed to play together in the same England side!"

From Quiz The Test Career of Geoffrey Boycott [2]

Answer: Trent Bridge, Nottingham

The new England captain, Michael Brearley, had always been an admirer of Boycott's and it was no surprise when he quickly got his man back into the Test squad - and so the Yorkshire opener was recalled to Test duty on the very same ground where he had made his England debut thirteen years previously. Boycott has admitted that he felt tense at first, in spite of the reassuring presence at Trent Bridge of Harold Bird, on umpiring duty. Boycott's comeback innings will not easily be forgotten by those who saw it. He started by running out the local hero, Derek Randall, with a terrible call, and then spent more than two hours laboriously acquiring 20 runs, at which point he offered a regulation slip catch to Rick McCosker, who put it down. With his team having subsided to 74-5, however, Boycott was still there, and in a sixth-wicket partnership of 215 with the mercurial England wicket-keeper Alan Knott - who chose this moment to register his highest Test score of 135 - the game was turned on its head, and Boycott followed his first-innings 107 with an undefeated 80 which steered England to a seven-wicket victory.

From Quiz The Test Career of Geoffrey Boycott [2]

Answer: he scored his hundredth hundred

As the late Brian Johnston of the BBC remarked at the time, the odds against a Yorkshire player scoring his hundredth first-class hundred in an Ashes Test in front of his home crowd at Leeds must have been pretty astronomical, and yet most of the Yorkshiremen arriving at Headingley for the first day's play confidently expected Boycott to do it - and they were not disappointed. Boycott batted long into the second day for his monumental 191, dominating the England innings and being last man out in an England total of 436 (Knott's 57 was the second-highest score). By the end of the match he had become only the fourth player in history to be on the field for the entire duration of a Test match. It should not be forgotten, either, that the England victory by an innings and 85 runs - set up by Boycott and then completed expertly by England's seam bowlers and fielders - brought the Ashes back to England surprisingly soon after the team's mauling at the hands of Lillee, Thomson and Walker in Australia in 1974-75.

From Quiz The Test Career of Geoffrey Boycott [3]

Answer: 108

Quite a lot of people - and not only in Yorkshire - think he should have played in more. There was one last chance to bring him back, in the Caribbean on David Gower's tour of 1985-86 when Mike Gatting's nose got in the way of a Malcolm Marshall bouncer and he was forced to withdraw from the series. The 45-year-old Boycott, who had been compiling mountains of runs for Yorkshire in the summer and was covering the winter tour as a journalist, courageously volunteered to step into the sudden vacancy and square up again to the fearsome pace of the world's most dangerous bowlers. His offer was politely declined, and a younger player was drafted in from England - although personally I think Boycott would have physically glued himself to the wicket rather than let any England team of which he was a member lose 5-0 in a rubber (which they managed to do without him).

From Quiz The Test Career of Geoffrey Boycott [3]

Answer: 47.73

The other three Test batting averages given are - in descending order - those of Gower, Gooch and Fletcher respectively. Boycott averaged 84.42 against Pakistan, 57.05 against India, 47.50 against Australia (with seven centuries) and 45.93 against the West Indies (with five centuries).

From Quiz The Test Career of Geoffrey Boycott [2]

Answer: 1 win, 1 loss, 2 draws

The Test in Karachi was a very slow-scoring, tedious draw, but things livened up in New Zealand with the English touring side's first-ever defeat there at Wellington, by 72 runs, after being skittled out for 64 in their second innings. Admitting that England hadn't deserved to win, Boycott added that his team "would like to be thought of as losing with grace, as New Zealand have done in the past". England gained quick revenge in the Second Test at Christchurch with a 174-run victory dominated by the youthful all-rounder Ian Botham, but anti-climax followed with a disappointing draw at Auckland. Opinion is divided about the quality of Boycott's captaincy on this tour. He has been criticised for demanding too much from his players on the one hand, and on the other for monopolising the crease during match practice so that others did not get enough time at the wicket. He has always defended himself vigorously on this subject, pointing out for one thing that as his side's anchor-man he needed maximum practice time, and for another that he was working with Brearley's chosen players, not necessarily the ones he would have chosen himself, and some of them could not always quite live up to his exacting standards.

From Quiz The Test Career of Geoffrey Boycott [1]

Answer: 142 not out

This was a crucial second-innings knock for England in the Fourth Test at Sydney, which prevented Gleeson from bowling Australia back into the match and set up victory by 299 runs after Illingworth had been able to declare with plenty of time to bowl the home side out. (England's brilliant strike bowler John Snow speeded things up by taking 7-40 in exciting style.) England thus took the lead 1-0, and the psychological advantage that went with it. They finished the series winners by 2-0.

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