Cracking Little Wind Up on Boycott from TMS...

Btw - just a note to the OP - brilliant wind up .

 

That's brilliant Mr Cod Eye, thanks for posting.

Not sure why the thread has then sadly been tangentially hijacked by the foolish ignoramus from Hemsworth who seems only to have flapped around and proved yet again that old maxim about a little knowledge being a dangerous thing (and when it comes to him and cricket that knowledge certainly is little).

 

Also anyone that thinks just scoring runs makes you an England picks needs to look up the run scorers this season.

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/count...ost_runs_career.html?id=11617;type=tournament

That shows the highest eligible England player in that list scored 815 at the 101 with 3 hundred. Take the scores away for England, he's not looked good enough with the bat and even if he hadn't broke a finger he would have been out.

Let's look at the players that got the caps this summer. Westley and malan.

Ones The 10th highest England player and 9th eligible run score on the list and the others a couple of places below that. Says it all.

 

Batting in second test was atrocious. A lot of these would struggle against some of the world class attacks of yesteryear - take WI for instance you saw the top 2 bowlers out but the next two were better. Every team had at least 1 or 2 truly world class bowlers - S.A. attack looks very average in comparison.

 

With three or four bouncers round your head you were more likely to be knocked out

 

This SA team have some wonderful bowlers. rabada morkel philander.
Michael Holding one of those WI crickets I think you are on about full of admiration for these guys.
Kagiso's got the weight of SA on him too. Massive pressure.

You mentioned bouncers and pace, Most of the England cricketers don't have a problem with that. Some would love it. Cook dream's quick and short. Score both sides with that. 75 to 80 MPH around off stump full. Heavy head, fall over.

 

Find videos of Marshall, Ambrose, Walsh and Holding then get back to me about coping with pace and short priced bowling. Rule changes meant they sre only allowed to bowl a certain number of short pitched deliveries in an over - the four above had no restrictions and were relentless

 

These bowlers are competent - wonderful no. Wonderful was Allan Donald - on form he was unplayable - can't say that about these bowlers

 

As a team member I always thought Boycott arrogant and utterly self absorbed. As a batsman he was magnificent. His runs carry far more value than those made in today's conditions due to the much more unpredictable pitches and the lack of restrictions on how bowlers could bowl to him.
You clearly have no clue about the brilliance of the West Indian pace attack or that of Thomson and Lillee. There has been nothing like the West Indies attack since.

 

Didn't Geoffery once bat in the last match of the season till he got his hundred (for Yorkshire) and at the same time made his average for the season 100 (as long as he wasn't out) and immediately declare?

He was a fine batsman, possibly one of the very best, but there is no doubt whatsoever that he played for himself not the team. I also remember the rest of the Yorkshire team staging a go-slow in protest at his slow play which cost the team a victory in the County Championship. At that time Yorkshire had a decent team which should have been winning things but under Geoff they won nowt.

 

Me too! Also aged 13. I regret not running on the pitch at the time as I was sat on the boundry and could easily have done so.
Still in the top 10 of all sporting days in my lifetime.

 

Cook's still playing, i'm sure he will be asked/have lots to say about his career when he retires and thereafter.
Cook's a fine cricketer, i have much admiration for him. Cook however has played many tests against poor opposition (bangladesh, zimbabwe and the west indies of the last decade: Geoffrey only played against the top test playing teams. Geoffrey also played for yorkshire when not playing tests for england, there were no central contracts then. Geoffrey was one of the best cricketers this country has ever produced, but not one of the most popular. He wasn't a mixer, he didn't have a pint with his team mates after the match. He was however a consummate, if sometimes selfish professional cricketer.

 

Cheers Hemmsy for completely missing the point of the thread and turning it into a rant about an individual you have a personal dislike for.

We all know Geoff is arrogant, and played for himself. That is part of why many love the bloke and why he was hero worshipped by many cricket fans.

Just a reply back to some of your "points".

Geoff did play(as someone else has stated) at a time when pitches were uncovered and often were virtually unplayable. Sure, nowadays we have DRS, which you say makes it easier to be given out, but as Shane Warne(who summarises for your beloved Sky) says, if there was DRS when he played he would have got another thousand wickets, so its swings and roundabouts, isn't it?

I personally never saw him play live, as I am too young. But I used to spend hours in the Yews Hotel as a kid, listening to my Grandad and his mates waxing lyrical about how he had made some legendary fast bowler look ordinary, or scored 100 runs on an absolute minefield of a pitch. Happy days!

 

I too found the wind up excellent - no not an excuse to find She's a Wind Up by the Feelgoods, but sometimes it's just brilliant to put someone like Sir Geoffrey (dubbed by a West Indian spectator) down a peg or too. I saw GB score his 98th century at Trent Bridge in what I think was the test that he batted on every day of the test. Lots have been said historically about his 'teamwork' Now I don't claim to know him personally but I'm sure that the selectors would have picked someone else if they had been any where near as good. Another couple of small points about cricket of yesteryear - there were no helmets protecting the batsmen way back when and I'm sure that when play started again after a rain delay batsmen used to do 'gardening' with the reverse side of the bat often smacking the pitch so hard to try to flatten it again. I recall Derek Underwood (spin bowler for you young uns) being unplayable on a 'sticky' (no not summat made by admin on here) wicket after rain.

 

I think the comments about him not being a team player are fair to a point but there's a balance I feel with his contribution to the team by not getting out, allowing others to build a total. There's a lesson there for the current team.

As a person, I've met him twice. Aged 10 or 11, in the summer of 1984, he was playing for Yorkshire second eleven at Shaw Lane. After lunch, before play restarted, he came down to the boundary wall and chatted to me and my cousin without prompting. Showed us how he gripped his bat, told us how important feet movement was. And also laughed when he said he was glad he wasn't batting against the West Indies that summer.

 

No, no no. That bit CAN'T be true. According to Hemmsy, SKY are the ones who invented players telling people how they play the game with their "Masterclass" shows. Nope, you must have imagined that!

 

It was a long summer, mind games in the sun no doubt, bit of heatstroke!!

Seriously, unrestricted direct access to a sporting great at that age. Memories I'll take with me.

 

It's a great anecdote.. It's the sort of thing that can make a kid a fan of a sport or life...

 

This with bells on. I can't remember where I heard it, but someone was speaking about Englands openers through the years. They said that if Boycott played in the modern era, he'd have been closer to 300 hundreds, and would easily be able to bat for all 5 days on some o the pitches that are produced today.