Geoffrey Boycott (right) takes to the field with Fred Titmus in 1964 to make his England debut. Photo: Getty Images
On June 4 it will be 60 years since I made my Test debut. A lifetime ago. This is a great opportunity to stop and think about how much cricket has changed. Some are for the better, some are not.
In those days, you found out you had been selected for England by turning on the Sunday 1pm BBC News bulletin on the radio. I had scored three hundreds before the first Test, so I knew I had a chance of being selected. Yorkshire were playing a championship match against Leicester when this happened. Even county cricket had a day off on Sunday. Alan Thompson, the Daily Express cricket correspondent from the north, lived in Huddersfield and offered to take me home on Saturday evening so I could sleep in my bed, then pick me up for Sunday lunch at his home, and then drive me back to Leicester for the evening .
I was so naive, and he was cunning. He obviously had a strong suspicion that I would be selected for the England squad, so he made sure I was at his house that day and also arranged for a photographer to come! Alan took a photograph of me playing cricket on the front lawn with his son Ian as the rest of the country's cricket writers rushed out to find me. Tommo had a great scoop. Years later I told him, “You son of a bitch, you set me up.” We laughed about this many times. Alan was smart.
The county match finished on Tuesday night so I went home to get some clean white balls and by Wednesday afternoon I was at the Trent Bridge gates preparing for the Ashes Test and meeting my mates on the England team. for the first time.
Boycott (back row, third from right) was an England international in 1964. Photo: Getty Images/Dennis Oulds
In those days there were no Lions tours or England preparation programs. I didn't know anyone in that England team other than my Yorkshire colleagues. At the pre-match dinner on Wednesday night, this little guy came up to me and introduced himself as Walter Robins, the chairman of the selection committee. I had no idea who he was.
He said he would give me two matches for sure and would like to give me three, but he has a Test series to win, so we'll see how it goes. That was wonderful to say. It gave me so much confidence because I knew I would be given a proper chance and not judged on one game or one inning.
After the selectors left dinner, we had a pre-match meeting where Ted Dexter, the captain, talked about how we would beat their batsmen. They had an impressive lineup – Bill Lowry, Bobby Simpson, Ian Redpath, Norm O'Neill, Brian Booth and Peter Burge. Fred Trueman, with a few choice words, summed it all up in no time at all. “Simpson? A couple of outswingers, then a support and he's gone. Lowry? A couple of bouncers, York, and good night, vicar. Five wasted in his head in the blink of an eye. This was our Fred.
“There was no cap presentation”
My match fee was £100. There was no cap presentation or speeches from former players like there are today. This is a big deal today. They just handed me a cap and a sweater in the locker room. I can't even remember by whom, which shows how unimportant it was back then. Society then was much less sentimental than it is now. This is a big deal today. I didn't have a car at the time so my mum couldn't come to Trent Bridge to watch. Television was in its infancy and the black and white picture quality was poor, but we couldn't afford it anyway, so Mom and Dad had to listen to the radio.
We had just 12 players for the match – two spinners if England needed them – rather than the big 15-odd squad we have today. John Edrich stepped on a ball in practice and his foot swelled overnight and he was unable to play. England had to select all five bowlers and Fred Titmus as a reserve batsman.
Fred was my partner and I didn't know he was deaf in one ear. I moved the single to the side and called for him to run, but he did not react because he did not hear me. Neil Hawk ran up and picked up the ball. Meanwhile, Titmus panicked and stumbled as Hawk threw him into Wally Grout behind the stumps. As Titmus was just rising from his back, Wally held the ball over the stumps and then threw it back to Hawk, giving up a run because Fred had slipped as Hawk had interfered with him. It was magnificent sportsmanship.
I thought about this during the Jonny Bairstow incident at Lord's. Wally was a tough old git but he played fair. He didn't even consult the captain Bobby Simpson and he could have sent Fred out and just thrown him back in. I've played with some great, tough Australians but at the height of that generation Australians had an instinctive sense of right from wrong and how to be sportsmen. At Lord's last summer with Pat Cummins and his team it was win at all costs – he didn't understand the phrase 'that's not cricket'.
Pat Cummins (centre) refused to withdraw Australia's appeal. Photo: Getty Images/Ryan Pearce
Following the 2018 Cape Town sandpaper incident which reflected badly on Australian cricket, there was a golden opportunity to showcase true Australian sporting prowess to the world. Unfortunately, unlike Wally Grout, Pat Cummins chose the wrong path.
The press wrote a lot about me before my debut, and it was well known that I liked the silence before a game to collect my thoughts. The Australians, having read this, began to look into our dressing room to chat, and tried to scare me away. It was really childish. Anything to gain an advantage, but it was wasted because nothing affected my concentration. The Aussies like a bit of skill and that's acceptable.
“They only covered the field when play was stopped.”
The biggest change is the open fields. It was cloudy and cloudy at Trent Bridge and I got there before 23, but not on the first day when it rained and there was no play for the rest of the day. I sat and watched the rain fall. The only cover was during the bowlers' run-up and completion of the game, not on the field. They only closed the field when the game was cancelled. It was crazy.
Looking back, you think, “What happened?” When we returned the next morning the pitch was wet and the ball had bounced off. Graham McKenzie hit me on the hand and I didn't realize at the time that I had broken my finger. I stuck it in the ground later when I was playing the field and missed the next test because McKenzie hit me with a ball that came off the wet pitch. I was happy to score 48 points before being caught by Simpson off Graham Corling, who gave me problems throughout the series and forced me to change my technique quickly.
By the time the pitches were fully covered in 1979, I was in my 39th year and past my best, but I thought Christmas had come early as I was averaging 100 in first-class cricket that summer. The pitches are much better prepared today. Dickie Bird got it right. When they decided to cover the pitches, he said to me: 'There should be two sets of statistics. One for open pitches and one for covered pitches because it's a completely different style of play.'
Boycott played in an era when the pitches were not covered, making batting difficult. Credit: Getty Images
These days, with big bats and dry pitches without grass, the Buzzballers' first thought is to hit the ball and score runs. Great, I love watching this. But we needed to concentrate on technology and stay at home. We played seven club venues in Yorkshire. On Saturday afternoon the pitches were good for club cricket, but for three days with the best bowlers in the county, many of them bent or turned over, and if it rained they did whatever they wanted.
“No amount of helmets will help people, who lack courage.”
Helmets have changed the game too. They take away the fear factor of fast bowling. As children, we were taught to always look at the ball, even when you are tilting, spinning or swaying. You had to carefully choose when to hook because if you messed up, you'd end up in the hospital with a serious head injury. He sorted out people who lacked courage and those who could not bowl fast. Nobody wants to see head injuries in cricket, but if you remove the threat of a fast bowler hurting you, moderate batsmen can look better than they are. I'm glad the players are safe, but a great fast bowler racing forward and jumping batsmen is a fantastic sight that we shouldn't lose because of too much health and safety.
Boycott was taught to always keep his eye on the ball, even when it dodges or swings. Photo: Pennsylvania
Another change is the bats. My bat weighed 2 pounds 4 ounces. It was very difficult to hit from above because you had to connect perfectly. Even the great batsmen did not hit sixes. Donald Bradman hit just six sixes in 52 Test matches and he was twice as good as anyone else to play the game. Overhand was frowned upon by many coaches as it gave bowlers the opportunity to put you out and I certainly wasn't going to do that in my Test debut. Neville Cardus said: “A cricketer is what his time and environment make him, and he reacts and plays accordingly.”
Boycott's bat weighed only 2 pounds 4 ounces, making it difficult to throw six swings. Photo: Getty Images/John Varley
Now the bats are much bigger and everyone can hit the ball further and Ben Stokes has hit 128 sixes in 102 Tests. The Indian Premier League makes youngsters overnight millionaires and T20 encourages youngsters to attack. I have never been against T20 because I understand that it brings pleasure to people other than those who love Test cricket. Cricket should be fun for players and spectators and T20 is here to stay. We didn't have anything like that. When people tell me how you would live, I say that we all adapt. I'd love to play this. Like any other child, I would run away to India with three empty suitcases to fill them with money!
IPL can turn young players into millionaires overnight. Photo: AP/Mahesh Kumar A.
When the ball swings, the young batsmen today, they don't play as well as we do, but they are better at hitting attacking shots because that's their environment. If Harry Brooke had been born 50 years earlier, he would still have been a top player. He would just be a different player. The talent is the same.
“We were encouraged to think like cricketers.”
There were no coaches available for county matches or test matches to help us. After completing pre-season training in April, you had to manage your own fitness and organize your own bowler training sessions many times during the season. It motivated us to become thinking cricketers and a thinking cricketer to become a better cricketer, plus it made us self-reliant and self-disciplined. It was good because we couldn't rely on anyone else.
Boycott leaving the field at the end of the game after his 100th first-class century in 1977. Photo: Getty Images/Ken Kelly
But I would love all the analysis they have today, and it's brilliant. You see the batsmen come out and immediately review their deliveries on the iPad with the coach and see where they went wrong. When I came out, I had to ask my teammate's opinion about what mistake I had made. In my day, we had no way of knowing whether it was your own fault or the referee's wrong decision.
The only thing that hasn't changed in 60 years is that players get nervous, but I believe that It's important to have nerves. Anyone who says they don't get nervous is either a liar or an idiot. You're nervous because you care and don't want to fail or embarrass yourself. All these feelings go through your mind. The best players channel this nervous energy into good results. For smaller players, nerves get the better of them and this reduces their performance.
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