SPECIAL FEATURE
Forty years on from all-rounder’s Test debut
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 singlehanded 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. Encouraged by his skipper and mentor Brian Close, close friend and team-mate Vivian Richards and major influences like Tony Greig and Mike Brearley, he had already made his OneDay International debut the previous summer and had travelled to Melbourne that winter to be around the England squad for the Centenary Test, rather too loudly and rumbustiously for the liking of some of the older pros.
Utterly convinced of his own ability and in a tearing hurry to prove how good he was on the biggest stage, by the time he got his chance the 21-year-old was champing at the bit, even though he was to do so in the presence of other all-time greats such as Geoffrey Boycott, making his triumphant comeback after three years in self-imposed exile, Alan Knott and Derek Underwood.
What happened next was entirely in keeping with what was to happen for the next 15 years.
In his second spell, he took four wickets in 34 balls, ended his first day as an England Test bowler with 5-74, including the wickets of Greg Chappell, Doug Walters and Rod Marsh, helping to bowl the Aussies out for 243 (from 101-1) and to set the platform for an England win and a 2-0 series lead they extended to 3-0 by the end of the summer.
What was completely out of character, however, as Sir Ian recalled in his first autobiography, Don’t Tell Kath, was that until the moment it all clicked, he had been fighting a personal battle with stage-fright and was on the point of a defeat that might have wrecked everything. “I had no doubts I was ready to make the jump,” Botham wrote. “Nevertheless, in the moments leading up to the match, I have to admit I was a bundle of nerves.
“The point is that no matter how confident you may be in your own ability, you never really know whether you can be a Test cricketer until you go out on the field and get involved.
“It was the fear of that unknown which caused me to be uncharacteristically quiet in the Trent Bridge dressing room that morning; everything seemed to be happening so quickly. I’ve no doubt a thousand and one people came up during the days and hours before to wish me luck, but I simply cannot remember a single word anyone said, and that certainly applies to the moments immediately before we went out to play.
“I do remember, however, that I was barely capable of speech myself. I had a knot in my stomach as big as a fist and my mouth felt dry. I had arrived in the Test arena, but the question flashing through my mind was: what happens now?”
Botham admits that, with his nerves shredding fast, he was desperate to field first and when Chappell won the toss that wish was granted. Still, however, he just could not settle. “I had tried to remember Close’s advice about not being intimidated by anyone or by any situation, but the harder I tried, the worse it got. I was like an actor going on stage for the first time.
“You can rehearse your lines until you are word perfect but there is still no guarantee that, when the time arrives to open your mouth and deliver them for
real, any of them will actually come out.”
A grim first spell in which he drifted too often to the legside was soon curtailed by Mike Brearley, all of which made him feel even worse, but then, immediately after lunch, with his wily skipper sensing he had to give Botham his head, “came the moment when everything that had happened in my life so far seemed to make perfect sense”.
Botham sent down what looked suspiciously like a wide long-hop outside off stump, Chappell leant back to smash it through the covers and one of the best batsman in world cricket was not the only one left struggling to comprehend how he had managed merely to smash it into his stumps off a horrible inside edge.
“As Chappell returned to the pavilion,” Botham remembered, “I tried to look casual, as though this was the kind of thing that happened to me all the time. In fact, my heart was trying to jump out of my chest.”
Boycott’s first innings century, followed by his unbeaten 80 in the successful second innings chase of 189, enabled England to complete their first Ashes victory in Nottingham since 1930, in the match in which Sir Don Bradman had made his first Test appearance in England.
Botham went on as he started, of course. By the time he was done he had collected 116 Test caps (with a further 102 ODI appearances) scored 5,200 runs, including 14 centuries, taken an England record of 383 Test wickets that stood for 23 years until James Anderson overtook him in 2015, featuring an incredible 27 five-fors, and held 120 catches, some of them scarcely believable.
He had also attracted a cut-down forest of newspaper headlines that made sure the first rock’n’roll superstar was rarely out of the media spotlight. And while that led to the kind of intrusion that took him to the brink more than once, it did at least raise his profile high enough to enable him to make such a massive contribution to leukaemia research.
Botham’s incredible journey, every peak and pot-hole, all began 40 years ago next week, and it would be rude and very remiss of us not to wish the greatest all-rounder the English game has ever seen a suitably happy anniversary and, if he fancies it, a messy one, too.