Bird pays tribute to fellow cricket legend Boycott on 80th birthday
ONE OF the outstanding batsmen in Yorkshire’s history – a character, a familiar face to cricket fans the world over, Sir Geoffrey Boycott, is celebrating his 80th birthday today.
And to mark his special day fellow Yorkshire cricketing legend Dickie Bird, 87, has opened up to The Yorkshire Post about his former Barnsley Cricket Club teammate and fellow octarian.
The former Test cricket umpire, said: “He has done well to get to 80 not out – it’s an amazing age. Geoffrey’s target should be 90 not out and then keep batting on to a century.”
Playing in 414 matches, scoring a total of 32,570 runs at an average of 57.85. Sir Geoffrey scored 103 centuries at county level, passing 1,000 runs in a season on 19 occasions and 2,000 once.
He also became the first man in the history of the game to score his 100th century in a Test match,
at Headingley on August 11, 1977, on his home turf.
But reflecting in his South Yorkshire home, Dickie, who batted alongside Sir Geoffrey and Michael Parkinson at Barnsley Cricket Club until Boycott left to join Leeds and play under the influential Billy Sutcliffe, before going onto represent his county and country, said despite early signs of promise he could “never have imagined” the success Boycott would go on to have.
He said: “I could see in the earlier days, he ( Geoff) was such a good player off his back foot... He would let the ball come to him and he seemed to have a lot of time to play the ball. He picked the line and length up very quickly.
“I didn’t think he was going to make it to the level he did – because he wore glasses, as you know in his earlier days and his fielding wasn’t very good. But of course he improved his fielding and it was then an amazing rise – from the years 19- 23, when he went from a league to county to becoming a test cricketer.
“When he went to Leeds... that was the turning point in his career. And then it was his application, his dedication, and his concentration that did the rest.”