It is March 14, 1981. A Saturday morning in Barbados. The Kensington Oval - a dilapidated delight of a cricket ground, a top-edged hook from the cruise ships and fishing boats that pockmark Bridgetown’s port - is throbbing.
Fans are scrambling through gaps in the wall and clambering up stands to perch precariously on their tin roofs, all in a desperate attempt to catch a glimpse of the second day of the third Test.
On the field, England are batting. Having dismissed West Indies for 265, they are - for once - in the game. At one end of the ground, Michael Holding, the world’s fastest bowler, stands with ball in hand. At the other, Geoffrey Boycott, the epitome of Yorkshire cussedness, is taking guard. He doesn’t know it yet, but he is about to face possibly the greatest over ever bowled.
Fast forward 40 years. Boycott - now a proud grandfather to little Joshua - is no longer padded up and Holding’s luxurious Afro has been replaced by neat, cropped grey hair, although he still looks younger than his 67 years.
United by technology that would have been unthinkable in 1981, the pair are about to relive that over together for the first time ahead of its 40th anniversary on Sunday.
Boycott is sat in his living room in Boston Spa. It has taken time to convince him to sit in the centre of the shot - as ever, his wife Rachael proves more persuasive - although it is a largely futile exercise because as the conversation begins he continually hops about in his seat, fending off the throat balls once more.
Holding, a more relaxed presence, is in the garden of his house in the Cayman Islands (he also has a home in Newmarket, where he can more easily keep an eye on his beloved horseracing). A palm tree is reflected in the window behind him, and the only background noise comes in the faint trill of birdsong.
Mutual respect abounds between old rivals stitched together by six balls which have taken on their own mythology in the intervening decades. Now, it is time to hear their story.
Ball one header
Holding drops on a line and length immediately. Boycott, surprised by the bounce, fends to second slip where the ball falls short of Viv Richard
Footage of Holding’s epic over has been viewed on YouTube more than a million times - proof of its own legend. Even so, watching it now is an unsatisfactory experience. There was no live coverage of the match, just a camera from a BBC news crew set up at long-on. The report only features three balls - the first, second and sixth - and the footage itself is so grainy and mucky that you can barely see the ball leave Holding’s hand, although that in itself was not a unique experience for batsmen of the day.
The news crew were in Barbados not for the cricket, but because the tour had been rocked by the Jackman Affair. The second Test in Guyana was cancelled after its government refused to grant a visa to Robin Jackman due to his links with South Africa. The fall-out was toxic, with the series effectively put on hiatus for three weeks as the authorities attempted to thrash out a compromise.
While Boycott recalls England’s players spending the time being “sat on our bottoms in Barbados”, Holding had work to do. He had lost his run-up in the first Test in Trinidad, going wicketless in the first innings before claiming 3-38 in the second as West Indies won by an innings.
It is hard to think of Holding, arguably the most graceful fast bowler to have ever lived, suffering a mechanical breakdown, but his problems were real.
“It had been giving me a problem for a year or so because I had a knee situation,” Holding recalls. “If you do not have confidence in your body it affects you physically and mentally on the field but [his opening bowling partner] Andy Roberts sorted it out. His knowledge and how he assessed people, even his own team-mates, helped me a lot.”
Holding’s respect for Roberts is obvious even now, and actually helps explain why he was even bowling to Boycott in the first place. As the senior bowler, Roberts took the first over, Boycott watching from the other end as Graham Gooch fended him off. Holding took over from what is now the Joel Garner End at the Kensington Oval (Garner was fielding at gully).