A Study in Stubbornness: Geoff Boycott’s 246 and the Price of Perseverance

In cricket, the Test hundred is a moment of personal triumph; the double-century, a badge of enduring class. Yet there are rare occasions when the manner of accumulation eclipses the milestone itself, when the process provokes as much as the product impresses. Such was the curious paradox of Geoff Boycott’s 246 not out against India at Headingley in 1967—a monument of grit that invited not celebration but scorn.

It was an innings built brick by brick, each run chiselled from the bedrock of caution. By stumps on the first day, Boycott had ground out 106 runs in six laborious hours. Far from inspiring awe, his effort was met with yawns and, soon enough, boos. The crowd—just 5,000 strong at his home ground—grew restless; the press, caustic. The Times’ John Woodcock, ordinarily measured in tone, branded the performance an "occupation rather than an innings." The Indian bowling, depleted by injuries to Surti and Bedi, was dismissed as "a defenceless army hunted down," its carcass picked clean not with savagery but with surgical, unrelenting drudgery.

Boycott’s crime—if it can be called that—was not his score but his obstinacy, his unwillingness to be seduced by risk even against a limping attack. “It was more of an occupation than an innings,” wrote Woodcock. Gordon Ross, writing in Playfair Cricket Monthly, sharpened the blade: “Every cricketer on the ground winced when he played a full toss or half-volley back to the bowler.” The Daily Mirror, less inclined to euphemism, labelled the day’s play "a joyless effort," squarely laying blame at Boycott’s feet.

But context, as always, complicates the narrative. Boycott arrived at the Test in the doldrums—his last nine innings yielding a meagre 124 runs. His inclusion had raised eyebrows, particularly after the selectors had called for a “brighter” approach that summer. His own account, given with typically blunt introspection, admitted to the grim optics of his innings but defended its intent: “The alternative was to give my wicket away and return to the anonymity of the dressing room.”

Captain Brian Close offered a nuanced appraisal, conceding that Boycott’s tenacity might, in another setting, have been hailed as a classic embodiment of English resolve. But on the opening day of a summer Test, it was viewed not as fortitude but as artistic vandalism.

On the second day, freed from the shackles of survival, Boycott shifted gears. In under four hours he added another 140 runs, compiling a personal best of 246 not out from 555 balls in 573 minutes. Yet the transformation did little to silence the earlier criticisms. Speculation abounded that Close had instructed him to accelerate—both men denied it. Still, Close made a symbolic gesture: when the innings closed, he draped an arm around Boycott’s shoulder, as if to reclaim him from the wolves.

Behind the scenes, however, the wolves were sharpening their knives. When the selectors met to name the side for Lord’s, Boycott’s name was absent. The official justification was damning in its phrasing: he had not been dropped for poor form, but for selfishness. It was a charge rarely levelled in public, and it cut deep.

Close, a selector himself, claimed he had argued for Boycott’s retention but was overruled. Boycott was unconvinced, and their relationship—already complex—suffered. The final indignity came with the revelation that the captain had waited until the Sunday morning to break the news, during a shared car ride to a friendly match.

Thank You 

Faisal Caesar 

The Over That Echoed Through Time: Michael Holding vs. Geoffrey Boycott

England’s 1981 tour of the West Indies was already teetering on the edge of disaster before the third Test in Barbados. Ian Botham’s men had been battered in Port of Spain, suffering an innings defeat. The second Test in Georgetown never even began, abandoned due to Guyana’s refusal to allow Robin Jackman—who had played domestic cricket in apartheid South Africa—to enter the country. But for a fleeting moment in Barbados, England had a glimmer of hope. Clive Lloyd’s West Indians had been bowled out for a manageable 265, thanks in part to a masterful century by the opposition captain himself. On the morning of Day Two, England’s openers, Graham Gooch and Geoffrey Boycott, strode out with the prospect of a vital first-innings lead.

But waiting for them was something altogether more menacing. Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Colin Croft, and Joel Garner—four of the most fearsome fast bowlers ever assembled—were poised to unleash their fury on a pitch described by Boycott as “a lottery and a farce.” If the history of cricket’s greatest deliveries is headlined by Shane Warne’s “Ball of the Century,” then what followed at the Kensington Oval might well be dubbed the “Over of the Century.”

As the packed crowd squeezed into every available inch of space, Michael Holding—“Whispering Death” to those who had suffered against him—began his run-up, deceptively effortless in its rhythm, like a pianist preparing for a virtuoso performance.

The first ball was a mere prelude, rapping Boycott on the gloves and falling just short of second slip. The second was quicker, searing past the bat with Boycott utterly at sea. The third jagged in viciously, thudding into his thigh—an ominous reminder that Holding could make the ball talk in multiple dialects. The fourth and fifth deliveries were no respite. Boycott barely managed to connect, the bat no longer a weapon but a frail shield against the inevitable.

Then came the final act. Holding, now at his most lethal, sent the last ball of the over “like a rocket,” as Boycott later admitted. The stumps were shattered, cartwheeling toward wicketkeeper David Murray as the Kensington Oval erupted in euphoric chaos. Boycott turned for one lingering glance at the wreckage before beginning his slow, solitary walk back. His score: a hard-earned, valiant, and utterly helpless duck.

“The hateful half-dozen had been orchestrated into one gigantic crescendo,” wrote Frank Keating in Another Bloody Day in Paradise. Even Holding, rarely one for sentiment, later reflected on the moment in Whispering Death:

 “I saw it as if it was slow motion. For a fleeting moment, there was not a sound, as the stump came out and I realized what I had done. Then I was hit by a wave of noise that tumbled down from the stands.”

Holding would go on to claim two more wickets as England collapsed to 122, their hopes of a resurgence obliterated. The West Indies romped to victory by 298 runs, with Holding dismissing Boycott once again in the second innings—though this time the Yorkshireman at least troubled the scorers with a single.

Yet, it was not merely the defeat that stung Boycott; it was the raw brutality of the contest. The pitch, he later wrote in In the Fast Lane, rendered any attempt at batting a futile exercise:

“For the first time in my life, I can look at a scoreboard with a duck against my name and not feel a profound sense of failure. It might have been a spectacle which sent the West Indians wild with delight, but had damn all to do with Test cricket as I understand it.”

But was this really an aberration? Or was it simply the most visceral manifestation of a truth that English batsmen had been reluctant to accept? The West Indies, at their peak, operated on a level beyond conventional cricketing wisdom. Their pace attack did not merely exploit conditions; it redefined them.

Boycott, ever the perfectionist, may have recoiled from the sheer ferocity of that over, but in a moment of candour, he would later concede:

“Michael Holding was the fastest bowler I’ve ever faced.”

And in that one over, Holding had not just bowled a spell; he had delivered a statement. A statement that still reverberates through cricketing history.

Thank You

Faisal Caesar