Sir Geoffrey Boycott: 'Why is a guy from cycling reforming English cricket?'

When it comes to his opinions, Sir Geoffrey Boycott has been going full 'Bazball' long before the term was invented. He may remain unconvinced of the tactical efficacy of the new approach to Test cricket introduced by the England coach Brendon McCullum. But there can be no doubt when he offers up his view on the future of the game there is no playing himself in quietly, a gentle single or two to get his eye in.

As you can hear when he makes a welcome appearance as a guest on Telegraph Sport’s Vaughany & Tuffers CC podcast, at the very mention of the initials like E, C and B, this is Boycott turned Jonny Bairstow, smashing verbal sixes from the off. His ire has been sparked by the new review of cricket led by Sir Andrew Strauss, which has drawn on the expertise of a wide range of sports figures including Sir Dave Brailsford and Sir Clive Woodward. He is not holding back.  

“He’ll know a lot about cricket, will David,” Boycott says, those familiar Yorkshire tones dripping with sarcasm. “And the guy from rugby. How many ex-cricketers is Andrew talking to? Those that played on uncovered pitches and those that played the type of four-day cricket played now? How many of them is he talking to?”

It is a hypothetical question. Boycott, apparently, is not one of those who has been consulted. But if he were to give him a call, Strauss might be advised to hold his phone well away from his eardrums. 

“I’d start by saying: 'What is English cricket short of, then?'” Boycott says when asked what advice he would give, in the unlikely event he were ever to be asked. “Do you accept that county cricket is the breeding ground for Test cricket? County cricket should be the breeding ground and it isn’t because England are short of fast bowlers that stay fit and quality spinners.

“There are no top-three batsmen that know how to play the new ball, stay in, create the platform. Part of your job is to get through the new ball for your team - protect the stroke-makers in the middle-order who can take the game away from the opposition. Part of the job is to score runs.”

And he goes on, banging the opinions to all corners. “If you think you are going to plunder the best bowlers in the world with a new conker when they are fresh then you are an idiot,” he says, smoothly dismissing the notion that 'Bazball' will inevitably conquer all. 

Just when you think he might be taking a breather, seeing out a couple of overs to let the dust settle, he is back at it. Wallop. Crash. Smack. 

“There are too many ordinary bowlers,” he says of the current English game. “So how do you get county cricket playing the type of cricket that creates more fast bowlers, more spinners and more batsmen who can play the new ball? The only way to do that is the pitches.

“If we keep having early season matches with grass and moisture on the surface where little medium pacers bowl people out, that isn’t going to help England be successful. There are too many ordinary bowlers. A lot of the money they [the ECB] get from Sky is because of Test matches - and county cricket makes good Test players, or it should do. 

“It has been failing us, which is why there is a problem. But it should be the breeding ground. There are so many businessmen that get involved and look at it and say ‘it doesn’t make any money’. But they aren’t cricketers [being asked their opinion by the ECB] and I don’t understand Andrew [Strauss, the head of the ECB] not talking to ex-players.”

Boycott had been invited into the studios by Phil Tufnell and Michael Vaughan in part to talk about his new book, Being Geoffrey Boycott.

“I was stuck in South Africa when the lockdown came,” he explains of the book’s origins. “My wife told me to sit down and start writing something in the mornings. So I thought about my first Test and my second Test, not the Test match itself, although I talk about that a bit, but things that happened around it. 

“That’s what I did, I was stuck there a long time. It gave me something to do and then I got into it. I had my Wisden there to check the facts. I remember them all, especially the times I got out for nought.”

And the stories come thick and fast, delivered as always without fear or favour. One thing is for sure, Boycott has not changed. Even back in his early days with England, he was never shy of an opinion.

“My first tour of South Africa, Donald Carr was the manager and he gave out the immigration cards and I filled them in. I’d never been on a plane. For my occupation, I put ‘making runs’. I gave him the card and then he came back and said: ‘Geoffrey, this occupation, you’re a cricketer’ and I said: ‘But they don’t come to watch others bat, I come to make runs’. And he said: ‘What about fielding?’ I said: ‘That’s what I do while I’m waiting to bat’.”

'If you were a West Indian, you'd have been a national hero'

Then there was the time he was dropped by England for slow scoring during a home series against India. 

“I made 246 not out and we won the Test match by six wickets,” he says of that demotion, the injustice of it all still evident in his voice. “We never had a conversation. You used to sit by the radio and wait for the one o’clock news.”

It was the highest professional score in England that season. But Doug Insole, the chairman of the selectors was pursuing a plan not dissimilar to 'Bazball' of playing brighter cricket. And Boycott was reckoned a hindrance to brightness. 

“It would have been nice if he had told me before I batted,” says Boycott of the policy. “His idea was good, maybe - but tell us what you want. He never sat us down and told us. I grafted away on the first day and relaxed on the second when I had scored a hundred. 

“I made 140 in three hours, we declared, they followed on and we won the match. He dropped me and I heard it on the news. I was in tears, the press was everywhere and Lance Gibbs grabbed me and pulled me aside and said ‘hold your head up, you’ve done nothing wrong. If you were a West Indian, you’d have been a national hero making the score and us winning’.”

Not that Boycott is one to bear grudges.  

“That Insole never spoke to me, even after he picked me for the match after I was dropped. I was terrified of playing a maiden over and got out stumped. The irritating thing was that he never had the guts to come up to me and say ‘listen Geoffrey, that’s not what we want’. That’s why I say they should spell Insole’s name with an ‘A’.”

Boycott was the original Bazballer of punditry. And even as he speaks, you imagine Strauss reaching for his phone to make that call. Or maybe not.

100 lucky Telegraph subscribers can claim a free copy of Being Geoffrey Boycott by visiting the Telegraph Extra website. Don't worry if you miss out as you'll still be able to enjoy an exclusive 20 per cent discount.