Sanjay Manjrekar recalls an unfortunate incident with Geoffrey Boycott

Former Indian batsman Sanjay Manjrekar has revealed a story about Geoffrey Boycott that has not been heard about. During a recent interaction, the cricketer turned commentator shared a story from the time when he was a batsman for India and had played an important knock for his side in a one-day match but didn’t get the man of the match award.

Manjrekar revealed that the incident had happened during the 1990 India’s tour of England when the two teams had played in an ODI match, which was 55-overs. That was the norm of ODI cricket back in the day. He revealed that commentators are assigned the job of picking the man of the match.

Talking about the incident the former player first revealed that his policy of selecting a man of the match is always a player who has taken his or her team into a winning position. But, that didn’t happen in that ODI match in England. He shared that he had scored 82 runs in a tough run chase and had helped his side to win the match.

Boycott came into the dressing room after the match: Sanjay Manjrekar

“And when we went for the chase, I probably scored 82 runs and was there almost till the end, got out probably near the end and we won that match. Usually, we see that a batsman who wins the match while chasing is favoured for the Player of the Match award. So, when the match got over, it was in my mind that I probably will be the Player of the Match and a couple of people also congratulated me,” Manjrekar said to Sportskeeda.

The former Indian player further revealed that Geoffrey Boycott had come to the dressing room to tell him that he didn’t select Manjrekar as the man of the match. Boycott opted for Kumble as the man of the match because he thought his spell of 11 overs, where he took two wickets and conceded only 29 runs, didn’t allow the England batters to score, which led to the Indian win.

“Geoffrey Boycott was supposed to give the Player of the Match in that match. He did a very good thing. He came into the dressing room after the match and came straight to me and said – ‘Well played young man. I think your innings was very important. Well done but the player who won you the game today was the bowler Anil Kumble. He bowled 11 overs, two wickets for 29 runs and England lost the game because they didn’t put enough runs on the board’ – he said that right on my face,” Manjrekar revealed.