Remembering Geoffrey Boycott's 100th hundred - a momentous day for English cricket

Geoffrey Boycott celebrates his 100th first-class hundred at Headingley

August 11, 1977; Headingley, Leeds: It was close to 6 PM. Greg Chappell came on to bowl to Geoffrey Boycott, who was batting on 96.

The batsman described the moment as, “I kept telling myself: ‘Just look for the gap around extra cover or through the on side’. In case I mistimed the ball in my enthusiasm, I was determined not to hook – even if Chappell dug one in invitingly. I’d faced 231 deliveries before Chappell came running in again. I’d struck 14 fours. The 232nd ball brought my 15th boundary – and my century.”

It was a perfect on-drive, which forced the non-striker Graham Roope to jump out of the way, as the ball raced to the fence. As the enormity of the occasion sunk in to him, Boycott raised both his arms with joy. Boycott had reached his 100th first-class hundred, becoming the 18th player to achieve this feat and the first to reach this landmark while playing a Test match. He still refers to it as “the most magical moment” of his life.

After a self-imposed exile of four years from Test cricket, Boycott was making a return to the international arena in the 1977 Ashes. Just five days before the fourth Ashes Test at Headingley, which happened to be Boycott’s home ground, he had scored his 99th first-class century for Yorkshire against Warwickshire. Expectations were high that he would achieve his 100th in his own backyard against the arch-rivals in the Ashes.

In the book “Fire and Ashes: How Yorkshire’s Finest Took on the Australians”, Boycott recounted the build-up to the game saying, “I kept the Post Office busy. A stack of good luck letters, telegrams and cards began to arrive immediately. On the eve of the Test I was still trying to read, let alone reply, to all of them. During our team meeting that evening, Mike Brearley noticed I wasn’t my usual self. When I asked to be excused from the general conversation, he didn’t hesitate before saying yes, and he didn’t need to ask why I wanted to retreat to my room.”

Nervous and unable to sleep properly, Boycott resorted to taking sleeping pills to try and get some rest. He woke up late the next morning, and had to rush to the stadium, “feeling tired and listless”. He prayed that skipper Brearley would lose the toss, and England would begin by bowling. However, as luck would have had it, Brearley won the toss and elected to bat.

The English innings, opened by Boycott and Brearley, got off to the worst possible start as Brearley got out on the third ball of the match with no runs scored. However, it didn’t deter Boycott, for whom the stage was set to create history.

After a slow and hesitant start, he found his touch and began timing the ball well. “Soon I was middling the ball, and the tiredness began to drain away from me. It was replaced with a solid conviction about two things: this innings had to be treated like any other – and it had to be constructed around the basic principles I’d always employed. Play one delivery at a time; play at the tempo I felt was right for me, and play with a single-minded determination that blocked out extraneous thoughts.”

Dropped by keeper Rodney Marsh when on 22, Boycott reached the score of 36 at lunch, and 79 at tea with some steady batting. The Aussies, led by captain Greg Chappell, tried to unsettle him. Soon after the start of the final session of the day, a delivery from Len Pascoe flicked his wrist band before going to Marsh, which prompted an appeal that Boycott described “so loud that it could be heard in Sheffield”.

An arm-ball from Ray Bright took a deflection as Boycott tried to turn it off his hip, and Marsh quickly caught the ball, claiming a catch. The English went up together in an enthusiastic appeal, which “grew more passionate the clearer it became that umpire Bill Alley was unmoved.”

Boycott later claimed that it had brushed his thigh pad. However the English disagreed, and even some of Boycott’s teammates thought he was out.

Graham Roope, next due to come into bat, said “He got a big nick on one just before I went in. Tony Greig was in with him at the time. Ray Bright was bowling, and the whole ground heard it. Marsh caught it. I was next in. I tell you how much it was out. I got up off my seat and put my gloves on, and he got given not out, and I sat down very quickly.”

Boycott recalled the incident, saying “They thought they had me, but then the Aussies thought they had me many times over the years and they didn’t. I didn’t worry about it. I just knuckled down and got on with it.”

After that incident, as John Woodcock wrote in The Times, “Boycott kept plodding along, taking infinite care not only in the production of his strokes, but in checking his guard, clearing out his block” as he inched closer to his century.

As Greg Chappell came on to bowl the delivery that Boycott still cherishes and remembers vividly, Boycott described the moment as “In the millisecond it took for the ball to leave Chappell’s hand, I knew the shot I’d play to it; I knew where the ball was going; I knew it would bring up my century. I saw the delivery in striking clarity, almost in High Definition. And I played it as though I was standing outside myself; actually watching myself get into position for the on-drive. I got it in the middle of the bat, and I watched the ball zip past the non-striker, Graham Roope, who leapt out the way.”

Boycott on his way to his memorable hundred at Headingley

There were officially 22,000 spectators in the ground, but as Boycott had moved closer to his ton, the club opened the gates to let more people inside.

Terry Brindle wrote in The Yorkshire Post: “Hundreds of youngsters, and many of their fathers, too, enveloped a hero they had long waited all day to acclaim. He was swallowed from view, trying desperately to shake a hundred hands at once, trying equally desperately not to be hoisted on to a dozen pairs of shoulders. And when the more delirious of his admirers left, Boycott faced a swell of congratulation which echoed and re-echoed round the ground until it seemed it would never end.”

The landmark was celebrated by the crowd, as the play was held up for about ten minutes, during which the Aussies sat on the outfield.

One of the spectators, Freda Watson told The Yorkshire Post “My dad had a full pint of Tetley’s. When Geoff struck the on drive, my dad and I and the rest of the crowd jumped in the air. However, my dad slipped and poured the entire pint of Tetley’s down the neck of the lady sitting in front. She didn’t notice for at least 15 minutes “.

Spectators engulf Geoff Boycott after he completed his 100th first-class hundred

Play resumed soon after, and Boycott ended the day unbeaten on 110.

He returned to the dressing room, which was full of people wanting to congratulate him. He soon slipped away for dinner and had a glass of champagne for the celebration. “It was only in the days that followed that I realised how many people had become caught up in the drama.”

Resuming batting the next day, Boycott scored 191 before being the last batsman to be dismissed. A strong foundation was laid for England bowlers to proceed and force an innings victory and with which England getting an unassailable 3-0 lead in the Ashes.

Boycott also achieved a unique distinction of being present on the field for the entire duration of the match, becoming only the fourth English player to do so.

By excelling at Headingley, his home ground, he also laid down the tradition of Yorkshire players doing well at the ground, most recent of which was Joe Root‘s maiden Test century for England against New Zealand, on his first international appearance at the stadium.

It was on the magical day of August 11, 1977 when Geoffrey Boycott created history and had managed to achieve the fairy-tale achievement of scoring his landmark century on his home ground, which has rightly found its way into the cricketing folklore.

Here’s a video clip of the momentous occasion: