On 8 June 1967 at Headingley, Geoff Boycott carried his bat for an unbeaten 246 against India in 573 minutes. The selectors, watching the same innings from the Long Room, dropped him for the next Test. It was the only time in Test history that an unbeaten double-centurion was omitted from the next match for slow scoring.
Boycott had walked out at his home ground with England 0 for 0. He was 25 years old, three years into his Test career, and had a reputation for caution that the Yorkshire crowd had begun to find tiresome. India, beaten 2-0 in the previous winter's series at home, were not a strong attack — Bishan Bedi was 21 and untested, Rusi Surti was the new ball partner of an off-cutter named Subrata Guha.
Boycott reached lunch on 25 from 88 balls. He went 45 minutes without scoring. He scored eight runs in the hour before tea. He reached 100 in six hours. The Headingley crowd — small to start, and shrinking — booed him to his hundred. Several Yorkshire members walked out demanding refunds. By stumps he was 106 not out, England 245 for 4.
Day two was different. Boycott batted with freedom for the first time, scoring 140 more runs in three and a half hours, including a six over long-on that drew the only sustained applause of his innings. He finished on 246 not out from 555 balls in 573 minutes — England's highest individual score against India at home. England declared on 550 for 4. India were bowled out twice for a six-wicket defeat.
The selectors met that evening. Boycott's first-day strike rate, the boos, and the public letters of complaint to The Times had all been read with concern. Doug Insole, the chairman of selectors, summoned Boycott to a meeting at Lord's and informed him he was being dropped for the second Test as 'a public reminder that we expect Test batsmen to play with intent'. The Yorkshire press was apoplectic. Boycott himself accepted the punishment publicly with unusual grace and returned to Yorkshire to score a Championship hundred against Northamptonshire the following Saturday.
Day 1, lunch: Boycott 25 from 88 balls.
Day 1, mid-afternoon: 45 minutes without a run.
Day 1, tea: 8 runs scored in the hour before the interval.
Day 1, stumps: Boycott 106 not out; crowd boos to the hundred.
Day 2, afternoon: Boycott reaches 200 in 510 minutes.
Day 2, evening: Out 246 not out; England declare on 550/4.
Day 5: England win by six wickets.
Boycott summoned to Lord's and dropped for the second Test.
8 Jun 1967
Test begins at Headingley; England bat.
8 Jun 1967, evening
Boycott 106 not out from 380 balls; crowd boos.
9 Jun 1967, evening
Boycott unbeaten 246; England declare on 550/4.
12 Jun 1967
England win by six wickets.
13 Jun 1967
Selectors drop Boycott for the second Test.
Jul 1967
Boycott recalled for the third Test.
“It was a grim-looking innings and I didn't need anybody to tell me that. But I had shown the character to stick with it.”
Boycott was recalled for the third Test at Edgbaston and made 25 and 46. He was never again dropped for slow scoring. The selectors' decision was widely criticised inside Yorkshire and became a long-running grievance in Boycott's own narrative of his career.
Boycott's 246 was a major Test innings ruined by its tempo. The selectors' decision to drop him for it was unprecedented and remains a touchstone in arguments about whether scoring rate matters when the result is achieved.
The 246 has become the standard example in cricket writing of a hundred that satisfied none of the people watching it. It has been cited every time a Test innings has been described as too slow — most often, indeed, by Boycott himself in commentary boxes thirty and forty years later.
England
1932-08-12
In August 1932 the MCC selectors confirmed Douglas Jardine as England's captain for the 1932-33 tour of Australia, a decision contested at the highest levels of English cricket and one that — combined with Plum Warner's appointment as tour manager — would set the conditions for the Bodyline series.
England
1934-03-21
On 21 March 1934 Douglas Jardine wrote to The Cricketer that he had 'neither the desire nor the intention' of playing in the upcoming home Ashes series. The announcement, taken as a quiet resignation, removed the architect of Bodyline from the field before Australia returned to England — a precondition Australia's Board had implicitly demanded.
England / Gloucestershire
1937-11-15
In November 1937 Wally Hammond — the leading professional batsman of his era — was accepted by MCC as an amateur, opening the door to the England captaincy he received six months later for the 1938 Ashes. The change crystallised inter-war debates about the amateur-professional divide and the unwritten rule that England's captain be amateur.