Here’s how Geoffrey Boycott says ‘Jasprit Bumrah’, and why he called Jamie Smith, ‘daft as a brush’ | Cricket News
Geoffrey Boycott who made Sourav Ganguly sound regal dubbing him ‘Prince of Cal-coooo-tta’ gushed about Jasprit Bumrah (his Yorkshire drawl was a delightful “booom-rha”), but made clear he was miffed with English keeper, Jamie Smith.
Wicketkeepers, and adventurous ones, seem to draw the ire of 70s-80s legends. So after the ‘stupid, stupid, stupid’ of Gavaskar had flipped to ‘super, super…’ for Rishabh Pant, it was the turn of the English gloveman to get his own legend brling. Boycott clucked at Smith’s mode of dismissal after he attempted an encore of a six on the legside and perished to Prasidh Krishna.
Telegraph UK for whom Boycott reviews the day’s proceedings, had earlier reported how Jamie Smith and Harry Brook “moved England forward with a 73-run stand of measured batting before a brain fade.”
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Smith ‘had taken on the short ball in the over before the second new ball was due and dispatched Prasidh Krishna banging it into a leg-side field with three men on the fence walloping a huge six over midwicket. But this is where England let themselves down,” as per Telegraph. “Doing it once was good enough, trying it twice was reckless. Smith holed out trying to repeat the shot and opened the tail to Bumrah with the new, hard ball,” was Telegraph’s gripe.
Boycott on a routine run down of the day’s dismissals on Sunday noted to the Telegraph UK, “I’ll start at the beginning. Pope out early to a wide shot, just flashed outside and he never made any more runs. Stokes fishing outside offstump. Brook dropped at 82 but didn’t matter. It was costly after that no ball on nought last night and he’s made 99 runs. He got to 99 playing beautifully. Prasidh bounced him and he goes to hook it out the park and holes out to fine leg. Bit of a disappointment really but the 99 runs that came were marvellous,” he said. So far, so good, before he launched into Smith.
“Smith at the other end made 40. He hooked a bouncer for a six and then he wanted another one. Missed it. Then he hooked another one and holed out on the boundary. Daft as a brush, that, for me,” Boycott declared, with brush phonetically to be read as ‘brooooshh’.
However the 84-year-old was quite happy with how the day had panned out. He told Telegraph, “Another marvellous day of cricket at Headingley. Day 3. Ebbed and flowed. Not sure who’s ahead at the moment actually. But we were treated to some magnificent bowling Jasprit Bumrah. He got a fifer. And Harry Brook. Absolutely entertaining 99. He treated his home crowd to some delightful, delicious, majestic strokes. Just over run a ball. Thrilling batting but took the breath away at times. And it took the match away from India when India were getting a hold of it.”Story continues below this ad
He seemed to find the overall cricket superb. “The tail wagged. Got a few runs here and there. Woakes 38, Carse 22, Tongue 11. And England got off to 465, a lead for India of 6 runs. Didn’t matter much. It was overcast whole day. Everyone had to sweat it through the runs. But the cricket was superb.”
How the last two days would pan out remained a mystery to the grand old man as well. “Not sure what lies ahead. India batted. They lost the young centurion kid, Jaiswal early out for 4, Sudarshan for 30. But Rahul played the proper, controlled opening batting to 46 before drizzling rain curtailed the day’s cricket. Come back tomorrow. I’m not sure who’s winning this. Good batting from India can set England an awkward target for the fifth Day,” Boycott told Telegraph.
