Let's Revel In Legend Of Botham 40 Years On

Let's Revel In Legend Of Botham 40 Years On

Humble apologies to Her Majesty the Queen, but while, as part of her Silver Jubilee celebrations, the monarch’s appearance on the first day of England’s third Test against Australia – on July 28, 1977 – was typically gracious and well-received, cricket-lovers will maintain it was only the second most significant event which took place there that day.

Actually, by the time of her visit, when the match was interrupted at 5.30pm for the players and officials to be presented to the royal party in front of the Trent Bridge pavilion, the first had already happened.

For 40 years ago next week, the sportsman who became the panto king of the common people, who popularised the game in this country like no other before or since, made his first steps on his roller-coaster ride to glory, fame and sometimes notoriety.

And a measure of what that meant is that, even now, four decades later, and 25 years since he last played for his country, Ian Botham remains the biggest name in English cricket, even among those who were nowhere near being born when, in the summer of 1981, he produced the greatest single-handed contribution to winning an Ashes contest ever made, in the series known simply as Botham’s Ashes.

The burly Somerset all-rounder had been earmarked for higher things ever since, as a callow youth batting at No. 9 in a Benson & Hedges Cup quarter–final against Hampshire in 1974, he had worn a bouncer form the fearsome Windies paceman Andy Roberts, spat out two teeth and stayed on the field to guide his side to victory.