Sir Ian Botham has played many roles Down Under – cricketer, sledger, destroyer, miscreant and bar-room brawler. Now add to that ‘trade envoy’.
Botham was, says the Sun, this week named as one of “ten new trade tsars” appointed by Boris Johnson’s government to represent the UK “in booming markets including Australia, New Zealand and Canada”.
“I have spent a significant amount of my career in Australia, and I am excited to have the opportunity,” said Botham, in the least incendiary quote he’s ever delivered about the old enemy.
A spokesperson for UK Secretary of State for International Trade Liz Truss said: “The Aussies love Beefy and he knows the country and the business community as well as anyone.”
“Love?” Really? At least Botham didn’t have the hide to pretend this imagined ‘love’ was mutual.
“Aussies are big and empty. Just like their country,” is one quote attributed to Beefy (although while famous, it could well be apocryphal).
There is no doubt, though, about his 2005 rallying cry to England’s team “that anyone who has played against [Australia] will tell you there is no better feeling than beating the convicts,” written in a column in the Sun.
A pugnacious and successful foe on the field, Botham has hardly endeared himself to Australians down the years.
Ian Botham. (Photo by Adrian Murrell/Allsport/Getty Images/Hulton Archive)
There is no doubting his talent – the Headingley Test of 1981 stands as a monument to his dashing all-round skill.
But he’s also remembered here for being sacked by Queensland for misbehaving on a flight and the earlier bar-room brawl when he claimed to have decked Ian Chappell, sparking a feud that’s lasted 44 years.
Merv Hughes once gave a telling glimpse into Botham’s character in Sam Pilger’s excellent book The Ashes Match of My Life.
Hughes of course is a fine purveyor of sledging, so it’s insightful that this one from Botham stuck with him and fired him on in his career.
Hughes had tasted international cricket was dropped after an indifferent start, only to win a recall 11 months later to face England in the first Test at the Gabba in 1986.
“The Poms were favourites to retain the Ashes with an experienced team, while we were still rebuilding after the departure of several players on a rebel tour to South Africa,” wrote Hughes.
“By the time England had reached 4-198 in their first innings at the Gabba, I had trebled my total of Test wickets by claiming Mike Gatting and Allan Lamb and was feeling pretty good about myself. Then Ian Botham arrived at the crease.
“The England all-rounder gave me a terrible mauling, hitting me everywhere. I had no answers. If I pitched it up he just hit through the ball, if I bowled short he would hook or pull it.
“My inexperience was being ruthlessly exposed. A couple of his sixes went a long, long way. ‘Merv, these are going so far they might get frequent flyer points,’ laughed Dean Jones as he went to fetch them.
“It got ugly when Botham made 22 runs from a single over, scoring 2, 2, 4, 6, 4 and 4 off me. I am embarrassed to say it was a record for the most runs off an over in an Ashes Test. I would check the record books, desperately hoping some poor soul had been worse, and while I found there was once 24 scored off an over, it was from an eight-ball over.
“At tea on the second day, after Botham was finally out for 138, I was sitting outside our changing room watching the rain come down and trying to understand what had just happened when Botham came out of England’s room. ‘You probably don’t remember me,’ I said to him. ‘But I was at a coaching clinic you did at Benalla when you played grade cricket here in the 1970s.’
“‘Did I give you any good advice?’ he asked. ‘I told you I wanted to be a fast bowler, but you said I should take up tennis or golf because they were more enjoyable and better paid.’ He got up to leave, turned to me and said, ‘You should have listened to me.’
“I would think about those words during the next six years as I established myself as a Test player. I took 8-87 against the West Indies at Perth a year after being humbled in Brisbane, and then regained the Ashes in 1989 against an England side containing Botham. I had proved I was good enough to play for Australia.”
Botham’s clash with Chappelli in 1977 is clouded in he-said, she-said territory.
While both acknowledge the incident happened in a bar near the MCG during the Centenary Test, their versions of events and the exact source of their fight differ wildly.
Botham, then a 21-year-old with two one-dayers to his resume, was in bar when Chappell got under his skin with some forthright views on the English.
Chappell claimed Botham put a glass to his throat and warned him he would “cut him from ear to ear”. Botham has always denied the accusation.
But the fight did get physical.
The pair have had other clashes down the decades and it’s a feud destined to follow both men to their graves.
And if ScoMo has any sense of humour left, maybe he should give Chappelli a fancy title and send him in the opposite direction.
Chris Adams
Guest
I would be inclined to believe Botham`s version of events...both were great players but Chappell was the inventor of sledging in the modern game to intimidate players. Botham gives him some real chat & Chappell runs away with his tail between his legs. I would back Botham against Chappell both on & off the field of play.
Mike
Guest
Yes, and didn't Britain do so well with their Covid strategy? Over 7 million infected with 135,000 deaths compared with Australia's 85,000 infected and 1100 deaths. I don't think you'll find too many Aussies desperate to live in the UK at the moment. Indeed, my brother and his family moved to England on a posting for work 6 months before the pandemic hit. His whole family became infected. He's been desperate to get back here ever since and says the UK is currently just an abysmal place to be. The rollout hasn't been great and the current lockdowns have tested us but in the overall scheme of things I'm so glad I live in Australia and not a country like England with a Trumpian Prime Minister. Seriously, Boris makes Scomo look like Abraham Lincoln! I'm not surprised that Beefy has jumped at the chance to live in Australia. The clash with Chappelli is an interesting stoush. I suspect they're both telling a pile of bull and the truth lies somewhere between their pompous recounts. They're both applying the Castanza principle - "it's not a lie if you believe it to be true"! Beefy is a buffoon and Chappell is renowned for (as Steve Waugh described) propping up a bar until 5 am boring on about cricket in his day, when men were men, and hating anybody who didn't fall into line to be part of his "king's court". They're both a pair of bores in my mind.
Homer Gain
Guest
It is very obvious why there is so much anti-Botham sentiment. The thought of an Aussie alpha male legging it across a car park pursued by a young England cricketer, is clearly an affront to what constitutes the Australian paradigm for most of the neanderthal halfwits who dominate this board.
Jim
Guest
Spot on
Jim
Guest
You despise us and we hate you and that is the natural order of things I hope never changes... ECB a real chance of an upset if they tour this aussie summer, huge dissent in the aus ranks atm , root steps down and ushers in the new guard...
Ian
Roar Rookie
I think he and Lamb are still paying off the court costs in their ridiculous libel suit they took out against him.Imran definitely won that particular battle.
Ian
Roar Rookie
I spent my youth watching Middlesex and I have to say I had a serious soft spot for Phil Edmonds.I still think he was the best captain England never had but sadly he fell out with Saint Mike Brearley and that did irreparable harm to his career.He was a prickly character but so what!!!! Geoff Boycott has always said that if he'd been made the England captain,Phil would have been the first name on his team sheet.Indeed,after Brearley broke his arm in Pakistan in 1977,Boycott took over as captain,picked Edmonds who duly took 7-66 in Karachi in the next Test.Sadly Saint Mike recovered,took back the captaincy and Phil struggled to get a look in while he was running the show.
Renato CARINI
Roar Rookie
Out of curiosity, Ian, whose your favourite Englishman from that era (70s, 80s)?
Renato CARINI
Roar Rookie
Gooch?
Once Upon a Time on the Roar
Roar Guru
I think it's a real shame him and Imran Khan didn't get on.
Ian
Roar Rookie
Thanks Ravi...I'm just off to Google what a Cynosure is...I'll be in my tent if you need me.
Ian
Roar Rookie
Ian Botham had many faults but the one thing no one ever criticised him for was his respect for the game.Throughout his career,the umpires loved him as he treated them with nothing but respect.He was known as one of the most generous people off the ground.Other players generally loved him.The problem was he just stayed too long.His no practice,get out their and do your best and at the end of the days play lets all get drunk attitude belonged in the dark ages.The problem was he took those same attitudes into the commentary box.He reminded me of Fred Truman,both thought that because what they did in their day worked,then everyone should do the same.Cricket,as life does,moves on.Sadly Botham didn't.
Micko
Roar Rookie
Yep those two as well.
Once Upon a Time on the Roar
Roar Guru
No, Botham did feel an affinity with Australian players and rated Ashes games as the most special of all. In his autobiography, Botham called out sledging and said that it was out of order because it destroyed the special bond that players should share on and off the field. He was great friends with Allan Border, and later became good friends with Dean Jones too when they were both involved with the new county Durham (new in cricket not in existence). It was also Dennis Lillee who came and bailed Botham out of jail after his arrest upon touching down in Perth for that 1987-88 shield final.
Ian
Roar Rookie
If you YouTube both those 100's there really is no comparison.Old Trafford was a wonderful innings.He actually played himself in and his stroke play was magnificent.Headingley was just a glorious fluke....aided by diabolical bowling and even worse captaincy by poor Kim Hughes who couldn't stand up to the bowlers and let them get away with it.
Once Upon a Time on the Roar
Roar Guru
Yeah, it never ceases to amaze me these true blue Aussies who defend McGrath's behaviour with "If someone said that about my wife (huff huff huff) ... " yeah, but what did McGrath say to Sarwan to provoke him??? Two wrongs don't make a right.
Ian
Roar Rookie
Even Steve Waugh thought that McGrath was totally out of order..and if Steve Waugh thought you've gone too far with the verbals?????? Nuff said !!!!!!!!
Ian
Roar Rookie
Spot on Bernie.He started off like a house on fire.Bowling lots of overs,taking wickets,taking plenty of catches in the slips and thrashing a few 50's and 60's.But as usual with anyone who's followed his career,he became bored.The drinking sessions became longer,the practice sessions basically ceased to exist.His performances almost became a joke but even after Greg Chappell and Border tried to get him back on track,it proved to be a waste of effort.He smashed up a dressing room in Tasmania with Dennis Lillee,got aggressively drunk on the flight to Perth and was charged and convicted of assault.Argued with just about everyone else,was openly dismissive of everyone else and Queensland copped a hiding in the Sheffield Shield Final.In the last 5 years of his career he just lived on past glories.It was a shame but there was nobody in English cricket who had the guts to stand up to him and say enough is enough.
Once Upon a Time on the Roar
Roar Guru
Me too Ian. Kevin Pietersen is a case in point. I think he was a fabulous batsman, and anyone, irrespective of how long they have been watching cricket, who doesn't include him in a short list of best they have seen is not technically sound. However, only a few short years ago, he went and played for big bucks in the Pakistan Super League. If he had still been in the England team set up, would he have voted to go and play a test series in Pakistan? No fear. Because with less money to be earnt, they can play the safety fear card and get some extra time off. Australian players would do the same, don't get me wrong, I am only giving a case in point.
Ian
Roar Rookie
Because they can earn even more playing Mickey Mouse 20/20 tournaments around the world than they can for playing Test Cricket.Apparently £650,000-£1.25m annual central contracts isn't enough for our boys.Fair enough,you've got to maximise your earnings in your career as it can be cut short at anytime.But it's the self righteous hypocrisy of some of these players that annoys me.