UNFAZED BY BOYCOTT’S FOUR-LETTER TIRADE
MY dad said he always remembered a Sunday League game at Hull against Hampshire. Geoffrey Boycott was out lbw to a shooter, a horror of a delivery skimming so low that the ball trimmed the grass of a shorn pitch. As a novice, my dad couldn’t understand why, as soon as the umpire’s finger passed sentence, everyone around him began dashing out of the dressing room. It was as though someone had just shouted ‘Fire!’ ‘They fled through the door,’ he said. Boycs, fuming at such rotten luck, arrived in a rage of industrial language, which began after a bit of bat tossing. My dad sat as impassively as possible through the worst of it. This seemed to impress Boycs, who gained a respect for him. The two of them stayed pals even through the turbulent years at Yorkshire. Boycs and his wife Rachael have been so helpful to my mum. They let her use their home in South Africa and we went as a family later, too. Boycs has seen me grow up, once even coming to watch me play football, but has never interfered. I’ve known, nonetheless, that he and Rachael are always willing to support us. So it was appropriate that Boycs should present me with my England cap ahead of my debut against West Indies in 2012, shaking hands and telling me in that unmistakable voice: ‘Your dad would have been so proud of you today.’ I knew it was true, but I wanted my dad to have been there, so I could hear him say it instead.