Famous bats and a baggy cap – Boycott to sell his collection
Reminders of the cricketer’s greatest innings are up for auction and could fetch £ 250,000
SIR GEOFFREY Boycott is having a mass clear- out of cricket memorabilia painstakingly assembled during his unforgettable and controversial career for Yorkshire and England.
The indomitable opening batsman is parting with his vast haul at a Christie’s online sale. It could raise up to £ 250,000.
The auction runs from Tuesday until November 16 and is described by the auction house as “one of the last great collections of cricketing memorabilia left in private hands”.
No reason has been given for the sale of 130 lots, which range from a boyhood scorebook from his debut for Ackworth Cricket
Club to the bat he used to score his hundredth 100 in a Test match against Australia in front of his home supporters at Headingley in 1977 – although proceeds from some of the lots, which include shirts from some of cricket’s legendary players, are going to various charities.
The cricketer who scored 8,114 runs in 108 Tests and 32,570 in 414 matches for his home county in a 24- year career from 1962 to 1986, was 80 on Wednesday.
He underwent a quadruple bypass operation in 2018 and has retired after 14 years as an outspoken voice on the BBC’s Test Match Special.
The hundredth 100 bat is estimated to fetch £ 30,000-£ 50,000 at the auction, while the shirt West Indian fast bowler Michael Holding wore when he dismissed Boycott for a duck with the last ball of one of the fastest, fiercest overs in Test history, in March, 1981 could fetch between £ 8,000and £ 12,000.
And a stump from the famous 1981 Ashes Test at Headingley, when England recovered from a seemingly impossible position to beat Australia thanks to Ian Botham and Bob Willis, could fetch between £ 4,000 and £ 6,000.
Also on offer is a West Indies cap given to him by Viv Richards
(£ 5,000-£ 8,000) and – estimated at £ 4,000-£ 6,000 each – Australian captain Greg Chappell’s “Baggy Green” cap, as well as Boycott’sbatfromtheGilletteCup Final in 1965 when Yorkshire beat Lancashire and Boycott scored a man of the match 146, and his bat from the 1981 Test against Australia when he became England’s leading run scorer.
The bat he used against India in 1981 when beating Garry Sobers’ Test record of 8,032 runs is listed at £ 3,000-£ 5,000. His double- century bat against India at Headingley in 1967 – after which he was dropped for slow scoring even though England won – should fetch £ 2,000£ 3,000.
A bat one might not think Boycott would have kept is up for grabs: the one he used in the Test against New Zealand in 1978 when Ian Botham ran him out for scoring too slowly.
Signed by Boycott, Botham and others, it is listed at up to £ 1,500.
Christie’s global president Jussi Pylkkanen said: “The Sir Geoffrey Boycott Collection represents a unique history of one of cricket’s greatest ever batsmen and is one of the last significant collections of memorabilia left in private hands.”
A unique history of one of cricket’s greatest ever batsmen. Christie’s global president Jussi Pylkkanen.