Cricket lovers have a lot of anniversaries to choose from in 2011. Much has already been made of Graham Gooch’s doggedly magnificent century against the Windies in 1991, which helped England to their first home win since 1969 against opponents just beginning to lose their sheen. Australians will remember Richie Benaud (oh so missed when Channel Five give us the smarmy Mark Nicholas) spinning Australia to victory in 1961. In retaliation, there was Illingworth’s Ashes victory Down Under, 1970-71.
But inevitably, most of the attention has gone to 1981, year of Royal Wedding, Toxteth, Ricky Villa at Wembley, Aldaniti’s epic Grand National Victory, ‘Ghosttown’ (and ‘Japanese Boy’) and this writer’s twin failures: to secure a place at Oxford University and lose his virginity to a Swedish engineering student and Beatles/Bowie fan on a ferry to Crete.
But inevitably, much of the focus has been on ‘Beefy’s Ashes’, how a bearded I.T.Botham, still only 25, stripped of the captaincy after a double duck at Lords (bowled by slow left armer Ray Bright in the second innings, ouch) blasted his way back, helped by shrink and guru Mike Brearley. The rest everybody knows: “Botham bats like Jessop” to make 149 at Headingley, the prelude to an amazing Bob Willis demolition; Botham given ball at Edgebaston and cleans up with five wickets for one run; Botham goes on the rampage at Old Trafford, quick-fire, pugnacious ton off Lillee and company after crowd treated to warm-up act of Tavare and Boycott crawling along at 1.5 runs an over.
The BBC documentary, “Botham: the Legend of ‘81” was predictably reverential, but quite good in parts. Contemporaries, notably a still chippy Bob Willis, long without those fabulous locks, Viv Richards, Joel Garner, David Gower and Mike Brearley were all up for it. It would have been good to have something from Geoff Boycott or Brian Close. Peter Roebuck, the enemy of Taunton, was also missing, but this was maybe not the time or place.
Botham’s other biographer, the languid Simon Wilde, was fair enough, but the non-cricketing pundits brought little but clichés, cod analysis and drooling schoolboy hero worship. Pick of the bunch was Elton John, who clearly knows the man, even if one winced at all that "he was James Dean...Marlon Brando" stuff. I would rather lend my Playfair annuals to Elton John than Mick Jagger, whose love of cricket has always seemed as much an affectation as as his love of the Blues. "He was a real anti-establishment hero", said the Street-fighting knight. Takes one to know one, Mick. Botham is a good Tory, I suspect. It would surely be more entertaining to meet the un-knighted Keef in the Long Room. The ubiquitous Stephen Fry was over-indulged as always and wholly surplus to requirements. So too were most of the accompanying pop tracks: “Starman” by David Bowie (1972, when Botham was in Somerset Second XI), Blondies’s unmemorable ‘Atomic’ (1980, when our man and team-mates were losing to the Windies).
To my shame, John Major’s over-professed love of cricket, tea-time chats with Jonners, spotted on camera looking studious at The Oval etc, has softened my contempt for the man, but I think we have heard enough from this quarter. “It was a miracle like Dunkirk”, gushed John. “What Botham did really lifted the nation”. I’m not sure all those hooked sixes and Aussie batting collapses meant all that much to the hundreds of thousands unemployed, John. It was the Falklands Factor, not the Botham Factor that saved Maggie at the polls. I’d still be curious to know if Major and Edwina Currie were tuned into Test Match Special on while getting it on, but that’s just me. Nothing from Tim Hudson, the man who saw Ian Botham storming Hollywood, one of many king-sized prats to attach themselves to the great game and its icons.
On the credit side, Botham’s wife and kids were good value. The man’s marching campaign against leukemia was moving and well told. I could have done with a bit more former Miss Barbados, broken beds and dope-smoking, plus his infamous take on Pakistan as “the kind of place you’d send your mother-in-law on holiday”, but no matter. At least we didn’t Ian in panto, angling or playing football for Scunthorpe.
On the pitch, we did get hints of the disappointments that came later. A journalist friend, less-than-charmed by a declining cricket champion during a terse, unrevealing phone interview, commented acidly that “most of Botham’s highlights in recent years have been in his hair”. The haircuts did get pretty horrible at times. Mercifully, the man who smote the Aussies in ’81 had a solid yeoman look; the blonde mullet came later.
As for the cricket…Botham rated his century at Brisbane in 86/87 as more important than anything in 1981. In truth, there was not much thereafter. Injury took its toll after 1987. International appearances dried up. There was the odd cameo in the 1992 World Cup, plus some old-fashioned Aussie-bashing for lack of respect for the monarchy, but as in previous tournaments (1979, 1983 etc), the Botham input was modest as it always was in international one-day cricket. Critics (cynics?) point out that many of the best-known Botham heroics came against lesser teams. He destroyed a post-Packer Pakistan 2nd XI in 1978 and the 1981 Aussies, led by Kim Hughes not Greg Chappell, were not overburdened with stars, although Allan Border was fast-emerging. Botham may be held in great regard by Richards and Garner, but his record against the Windies in their pomp was decidedly poor.
I’m still a bit unconvinced. I only saw Botham in action twice. Brought in for n early one-day match in 1976 against Lloyd, Richards, Holding and co, Botham was carted out of Edgebaston by Gordon Greenidge. Two years later, Botham made 80 against Sussex in the Gillette Cup Final and had a quick burst of wickets, looking a straightforward bet for Man of the Match. But that honour went to Paul Parker, who steered Sussex to a comfortable victory. Parker played only one Test for England, appearing at The Oval in the last match of Botham’s summer.
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