SPECTATOR SPORT
Celebrated centurions
Frank Keating
I CURSED myself for not popping over to Bristol last week to help put up the shutters on the cricket season — to have a drink with Glos for one of their rare wins, and with Essex for their championship. But it was a glum morning even before the show- ers threatened to scud up the Channel, and anyway Graham Gooch had put himself down at No 6, so was obviously intent sim ply to potter out the season. In the event, wouldn't you know, the stubbled, diligent old boy hit another century. It was his 99th first-class 100. I missed it. Shame. Because I certainly will not be seeing his 100th knowing him and his dislike of fuss, he has doubtless reserved that milestone for some- where obscure on the Indian plains early in the New Year: Nagpur, say, or Ahmabad. Nice if he was forced to do it in the first Test of the tour, in front of cameras and an excited throng which festooned him with garlands. He wouldn't like that, and wouldn't know where to look, but it would be as much as he deserves.
Of history's previous 22 in this statistical hall of fame, only Geoffrey Boycott and Zaheer Abbas have gone to their century of centuries in a Test match. Both were besot- ted by records, so you fancy they planned the when and the where for full impact. Aptly somehow, Woolley and Compton completed the deed at Lord's. Hayward,
Hutton and John Edrich posted their 100th at the Oval. More fustian settings have also happened to host the hoorays — Mead did it at Kettering, Sandham at Basingstoke, and Ernest Tyldesley at, of all places, Peter- borough, where Northants used to play.
The last Englishman to the centurion's century was that affable, honest-gazed, pipe-smoking opener, Dennis Amiss, in 1986. At the time I remember thinking he might be the last native Englishman to do it. Gooch then had only 54 centuries and seemed to be already going through too many menopausal crises at the crease. (His recovery from those has been sensational.) Gower's things of beauty were never going to need three figures to prove their prove- nance (he has still scored only 50 cen- turies), and Gatting's career was only just coming out of its early mess. Hick, of course, had scarcely been heard of. Now Gatting and Hick are steaming up fast and each should be vying for his 100th around 1996 at the latest.
Hick, still only 26, will comfortably be history's youngest to reach the mark. At 31, Hammond hitherto has been the most junior; then Hutton, 35, and Boycott, 36 (Gooch will be 40 next July).
So Boycott was a comparative spring chicken that golden summer's day in his own backyard at Headingley in 1977. It seems like only last Wednesday that he nervelessly took a pace down the pitch to clink Greg Chappell through the mid-on boundary. Then the emperor's two-fisted salute, the wonky grin more skew-whiff than ever. His compatriots careered on to mob him, and one of them stole his cap. But, luckily, not his hair-piece. He finished his day of days with 191.
The night before, although he had been in bed as usual by nine, for once Geoffrey had not slept; he just lay on his pillow through the small hours, serenely contem- plating the century to come. Three doors along the hotel corridor, his captain and fellow opener, Mike Brearley, also had a sleepless night. Mike read Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel, the German philosopher. Next day, Mike got a duck and Geoffrey his 100th 100. Which, if noth- ing else, says something about German phi- losophy.
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