England v West Indies: Second one-day international
Venue: Bristol
Date: 24 May
Start: 1045 BST

England (from): Andrew Strauss (capt), Ravi Bopara, Ian Bell, Owais Shah,
Paul Collingwood, Eoin Morgan, Matt Prior, Dimitri Mascarenhas,Tim Bresnan,
Stuart Broad, Graeme Swann, Ryan Sidebottom, James Anderson.

West Indies (from): Chris Gayle (capt), Denesh Ramdin (vice-capt), Lionel Baker,
Sulieman Benn, Dwayne Bravo, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Fidel Edwards, Runako Morton,
Kieron Pollard, Ravi Rampaul, Darren Sammy, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Lendl Simmons,
Jerome Taylor.

Dates can be tricky things sometimes...

Yes, but not Sir Geoff's batting average.

And no-one will ever know why.
Touche Mr Roberts.

You could re-post a precis of the item we are referring to, so as not to confuse the membership. That was much funnier than my lame retort.

Is that the correct figure or just a number you plucked out of the air at random..? (Seems a bit high to me..)
Is there any cricket to watch in Nova Scotia this weekend?

No, that is a real number: Geoffrey Boycott's lifetime first-class batting average. It is also the highest average for ANY of the 38 batsmen who have exceeded 35,000 runs in their first-class career.

Apparently, some of us still don't appreciate how dominant Boycott was. Along with Hutton and Sutcliffe he has no peers among Yorkshire-born batsmen.

(Note: "the Don" ONLY scored 28,067 runs in his career.)

Bradman only had one world war to interrupt his career as well. Boycs had at least three and probably more.

Alas, as you imply Boycott's wars were faught in the Yorkshire Committee room. Remember, to that at the time of his forced retirement, he probably had 3 or 4 more productive seasons to come - and he averaged over 50 in his final season.

If you study Boycott's life and times, and some might add crimes, if he'd never existed someone would have had to invent him in print. Even then the book would be stuck on the top shelf of sporting fiction and thought of as too surreal to be true.

Love him or hate him (is there an in-between opinion?), Boycott is probably the most interesting, compelling, divisive, and opinion-provoking Yorkshire cricketer who ever walked the Broad Acres. We should all be very thankful.

But you've forgotten Fulneck's favourite son;
A total of 40,140 career runs - scored at a first class average of 55.51 (56.67 in Tests). And he lost six years through a (real) war, and played half of his career with one arm shorter than the other.....
He also captained England to the Ashes. Twice......

True, but Boycott still had a higher average: 56.83

Perhaps this would be a better place to direct our latest Boycott discussion: Boycott Contest

>>and played half of his career with one arm shorter than the other.....< <br>
I always thought he played half his career with one arm longer than the other. Puts a whole new perspective on things and I'm not sure which is easier, or even harder. On the one hand it might be easier and on the other it might be harder. Either way, during the war his armies were always just above his wristies.
All meant in armless fun of course;-)

..There's no 'arm in it....

"It would be sad injustice to cricket and to Hutton were figures to obscure the art of his batmanship. He is ideed a beautiful player. His every movement at the wicket has a tidiness, an economy, a rightness, that stamp him unmistakably among the truly great. on difficult wickets against the turning ball he is surely close to perfection, confident in judgement, swift in footwork, faultlessly balanced. when run-scoring is comparatively easy his off drive and forcing shot off the back foot are only credible because they are seen tie and time again. There is no stroke he does not play. He is a complete illustration of batting."
JM Kilburn (Who saw a bit of Yorkshire cricket in his time.)


It isn't just the quantity of runs. It's also the manner and the context in which they're scored.

A good start for England with 3 Windie's wickets down already, including two ducks. Bressy hasn't had a bowl yet, but hopefully he can make his mark when he does.