booth started the 1963–64 season strongly. he scored centuries in his first two innings, recording 121 and 169 not out against queensland and western australia respectively. in his rapid innings against western australia at the scg, which took only 165 minutes, booth reached 100 in 94 minutes during the second session of the day. in the lead-up to the tests, booth scored 63 for his state against south africa but was unable to prevent defeat. in the tests, he began the way he did in the previous season, with a century. coming to the crease with australia at 3/88 in the first innings of the first test in brisbane, booth withstood an opening burst of bouncers from south african spearhead peter pollock. he went on to accumulate his test best of 169 from 81 overs of batting, in a display that gained wide praise because of his elegant strokemaking. one newspaper proclaimed that his innings had "more grace than the princess of monaco." ray robinson said "it was a tailored innings, fit to be put on display in a showcase and unrumpled by a single chance". south african skipper trevor goddard later said "we didn't mind the leather chasing, when he played so charmingly". booth's innings was the highlight of a match that was uneventful in terms of cricket but notorious for the no-balling of ian meckiff. a broken finger sidelined booth for a month and prevented him from playing in the second test, but he returned for the third test in sydney, and began a sequence of 75, 16, 58 and 24. he finished the series in the fifth test in his home town, top-scoring in both of australia's innings, with 102 not out and 87 in a draw. it capped off a productive fortnight for booth; he had scored 162 not out against south australia before the final test. in four tests, he aggregated 531 runs at 88.50. for the entire first-class season, booth had struck five centuries and totalled 1,180 runs. according to gideon haigh, he had "played exquisitely" throughout the season, which was his career peak and saw him named the australian cricketer of the year for 1963–64.