September a decade ago, and Yorkshire were playing Essex in the last round of County Championship. In March, at the season’s start, Geoffrey Boycott had been elected club president. “The only thing that really matters to the membership is that Yorkshire do well in championship cricket,” Boycott said then. The club’s sesquicentenary was coming up in 2013. “In our anniversary year we should be striving to win the championship. We cannot do that in the second division, we have got to get out of it.” The onus, Boycott said, was on the young players. “They have to perform, they have to help to get promotion.”
Yorkshire needed 19 points from this last game to do it. But Essex had a strong attack, and soon Yorkshire were 166 for six. That brought Azeem Rafiq to the wicket. He was 21, with a handful of first class matches behind him. He was one of those kids Boycott had been talking about. In just under three hours, he made 53 from 130 balls, with just a single four, and led the team to 312. When Essex batted, Rafiq removed three of their top five. In Yorkshire’s second innings, they were 111 for six, and the match was back in the balance. Rafiq made an unbeaten 75, in an innings that all but sealed their promotion. Then on the last day he made sure of it by taking five for 50. Yorkshire won by 239 runs.
