The cricketing fraternity has sent its good wishes to legendary England batter Geoffrey Boycott on his road to recovery after successfully undergoing surgery to remove throat cancer. Earlier this month, Boycott was informed last week that the throat cancer, for which he was treated in 2002 through chemotherapy and radiotherapy, made a return and needed surgical intervention. “Just to let everyone know my Father, Geoffrey, has successfully come out of surgery this evening after a 3 hour operation to remove his throat cancer. Yet to see him but surgeon says it went well. He asked that I post an update,” wrote his daughter Emma in an update through Boycott’s X account.

Reacting to the same, former Australia player and head coach Darren Lehmann wrote, “Thanks for the update, please pass on our thoughts to the whole family and glad the surgery went well.” Former England player Alan Butcher wrote, ‘Great news’, while ex-captain Michael Vaughan posted a red heart emoji.

Boycott scored 8,114 runs in 108 Tests from 1964 to 1982 and even captained England on four occasions in 1978 when Mike Brearley was injured. He scored his hundredth first-class hundred against Australia at Headingley in 1977. His Test career was worth 108 matches, 8114 runs coming at an average of 47.72, including 22 centuries and 42 half-centuries.

He represented Yorkshire in first-class cricket, where his runs tally ended at 48,426, the fifth highest of all time. He later became president of Yorkshire, and was associated with the BBC Test Match Special commentary team for 14 years till 2020.

He also had stints with Sky Sports and Talksport radio, apart from writing various books on cricket.

Former England player Geoffrey Boycott has lashed out at the England cricket team for its poor show, of late. Jos Buttler-led England had a forgettable ODI World Cup in India. In the quadrennial tournament, the side finished at the seventh spot in the ten-team table with only three wins to its credit. It got poorer for England as the side’s much-talked ‘Bazball’ approach in the Test format saw it losing 1-4 to India. Boycott stated that “Test cricket is not an exhibition” and the players should “join a circus” if the results don’t matter to them.

“All we have had over the last few months is the Twenty20 World Cup in the Caribbean, where England performed poorly, the Indian Premier League, which helped a few of our moderate to average Test players get rich, and before that a miserable 4-1 Test series loss in India where England started well, but in the end were hammered,” Boycott wrote in his column in Telegraph.

“In India last winter, ego and hubris got the better of some of our players. They came out with comments about being entertainers and how it was important to score quickly and thrill the crowds. All that is laudable but they should never lose sight that there is a winner and a loser and losing isn’t much fun.

“Test match cricket is not an exhibition. If our players start to think that results don’t matter then they might as well join a circus or go around the world like the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team doing tricks, laughing and joking and not bothering who wins so long as everyone has a fun time.

The England cricket team made a return to the longest format of the sport with the first Test against West Indies being played at Lord’s. The match kicked off on Wednesday also happens to be the last international appearance for England great James Anderson.