From: karnik@myria.cs.umn.edu (Neeran M. Karnik)
Subject: More in defense of Ian Botham.... (LONG)
Organization: University of Minnesota
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 22:04:58 GMT

>Botham was a cricketer whose mere presence would raise everyone's
>heart-beat; "something would happen now," they would go. Remember
>the Melbourne test of 1982-83 (Ashes series)? when Australia
>required four to win the game, with the last wicket intact, when
>Bob Willis threw the ball to Botham. And he went on to claim the
>wicket that noone else was able to get, giving his side one of the
>closest victories of all times.

>Nadeem Moghal

	Here's yet another article from the July 11 issue of the Sportstar.

**** Start ****

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Time's Up For The Showman -- by Ted Corbett , The Sportstar, July 11
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	I want to remember Ian Botham - and I am sure I am not alone in
this desire - as a hero. I don't want to have to make excuses for him,
even to myself. I hope therefore, that he never plays international
cricket of any sort again. It is all the more likely that England will not
call on his services in the future after the remarkable sequence of events
in the first two Tests against Pakistan. 

	The first, at Edgbaston, was badly hit by rain so that only two
deliveries were bowled on the opening couple of days. On the third, Botham
bowled 13 overs and then retired with a groin strain. He took no further
part in the match. During the second Test at Lord's, he made 2 in the
first innings and 6 in the second. He did not bowl. He took two catches -
in which he equalled Colin Cowdrey's England record of 120 in Tests - and
dropped 2 (or 3 if you want to be either unkind or very precise). 

	His most memorable part of the match - in which he wore those
wrap-around dark glasses, that, one is told, make it easier to see in the
glare or make the most of semi-darkness - was to slip in the shower and
further damage his groin. He was also hit on the toe, by Mushtaq Ahmad of
all people, and it was later found to be either badly bruised or broken. 

	As a result Botham was left out of the third Test squad and
advised by David Graveney, his captain at the newly-formed county of
Durham, to rest until he was completely fit. It was good advice by a
considerate man who, like me and many more Botham admirers, does not want
to see a great cricketer demean himself by struggling on when he is either
not fully fit or when he is past his best. 

	I am afraid that, big though his heart is, and greatly determined
though the man may be, Botham now has a short life on the shelf. I'm
sorry. He was, in the ten years in which I have reported every England
Test match save three, the most whole-hearted, most enthusiastic and most
gung-ho cricketer on their side. He did not see any match lost until he
had given his last ounce of energy, he was happy to walk through fire and
water for the cause and whatever his critics may say, he had technical
ability far in excess of his teammates. 

	The Botham phenomenon was been detailed too often for me to need
repeat it all. Besides, there is not the space to do him justice. Let me
just skim across the surface of a career that had so much depth as well as
so much breadth and almost as much drama as a daring writer might cram
into a soap opera. 

	He has played 102 Tests and only the specialist batsmen Geoff
Boycott (108), David Gower (114) and Cowdrey (114) have played more. He is
one of the top ten England batsmen with 5200 runs at a disappointing
33.93; but that average is almost as high as that of Allan Lamb, another
specialist batsman who dropped out of the side at the same time. 

	Botham bowled everything from plain fast - in the 1985 Ashes
series against Australia - through his first offering of beautifully
controlled, perfectly pitched outswingers at the top end of fast medium,
to his present fare which it would be polite to call military medium,
although it contains all the elements of change of pace, change of line
and change of direction so that even the finest batsmen sometimes find the
ball is not at the end of their bat as they push forward. 

	He also flirted with off-breaks, believing they might serve him in
an emergency. I will draw a kindly curtain over these ordinary deliveries.
Batting and bowling apart, Botham was a magnificent fielder, quick in the
outfield, certain in the inner ring and, at his specialist position at
second slip, not only great but also an innovator. He stood in advance of
1st slip and placed both hands on his knees. The purists blanched, but he
knew that by doing so he was well balanced and that he could go high or
low and be sure to take every edge. I include the giants of slip-catching
like Bobby Simpson, Wally Hammond and Greg Chappell when I say that noone
was better, and indeed, the two catches he held in the Lord's test were
credit to his athletic agility and the sureness of his clutch. Unhappily,
those he missed showed how far his reactions have slowed. 

	Here then was a man fit to be measured alongside two of the
greatest post-war all-rounders - Gary Sobers who watched the Lord's test
through a retina now back in place after an expensive and complicated
operation in Miami recently, and Richie Benaud who saw the game as part of
the BBC TV commentary team. 

	Botham was more than just England's most charismatic cricketer, of
course. Like Muhammad Ali he managed to stride across the ropes that
usually hold back sportsmen when it comes to discussing the Man of the
Year and other such concepts. Quietly at first, and then when he saw the
value, with increasing publicity, Botham took on the cause of children
with leukaemia after a visit to a hospital when the plight of these
innocents reduced him to tears and made him realise that as a fit and
healthy young athlete he was a lot luckier than some around him. 

	So he walked thousands of miles with a bunch of friends, but
particularly with his special mate the journalist Chris Lander, to raise
money so that more research could be done for finding a cure. He strode
the famous British walk from John O'Groats to Land's End, he romped
through Ireland, he tramped Hannibal's route through the Alps to the
amazement of the French and Italians who had never heard his name and he
followed the east coast of England from Scotland to East Anglia. The
result was a million pounds and more towards research and a new place in
the hearts of the British people for the enigmatic Botham.

	There were those who sneered that he did it only to make up for
other misdemeanours - although not in his hearing I should add - but if he
gained merit by those acts, they were mainly a sideshow to the main event.

	For the simple truth about Botham is that he was and, I guess
always will be, a big man. He played his cricket hard, but I never heard
even his most aggressve opponent accuse him of anything underhand. He
hated cheating in all its minor and major forms and when on one occasion
in Australia he was recalled by an opposition captain who thought he had
been wrongly given out, Botham got himself out immediately. He and I did
not always get along in harmony. I thought his attitude to soft drugs was
wrong, and said so.  He sent a message of agreement. I wrote that when he
announced he would not tour with England again, the rest of the team
yawned, and he confronted me and demanded to know who in a furious row
that awoke half the residents of an Adelaide hotel.

	I would not have had this big, loud, warm-hearted extrovert any
other way. He could br coarse and foolishbut which young sportsman is not.
He had a poor record as captain of England yet with Somerset he was
sometimes shrewd and always considerate. If he had led England at 30
instead of 24, the history of his life and the game of cricket might have
been different. Best of all he added colour and zest and personality to a
game that has had more than its share of bright, lively characters. Vic
Marks, his long-term teammate at Somerset, put it this way. "There is no
game in which Botham is playing in which he will not leave an impression.
You can be in the middle of a sleepy match that is dying of boredom when
he will suddenly turn and chase with that struggling, surging stride of
his and catch a steepling chance that is dropping at third man when no one
else would even bother to pursue it."

	That was the greatness of Botham. That he had energy to spare. "Oh
my God, he's bored" I once heard Gower say as Botham prowled a tour hotel
poolside looking for minor mischief. "What is he going to do now ?". He
did not relish tours to the sub-continent. "Pakistan is a place you would
not send your mother-in-law to", he said. Botham would still die for his
team, still throw his last ounce of energy into the fray, still bat all
day to save a match, or bowl until his groin or his hamstring or
his knees, rebuilt spine and much plastered fingers gave out.

	Now there is a sign of a stomach too large, the reactions have
slowed; Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram get through when once Dennis Lillee
and Michael Holding found his bat was too quick; and the great batsman
waits for the increasing number of bad balls.

	He still has a fine cricketing brain, a tactical awareness that
cannot be learnt in less than ten years and he still desperately wants to
succeed. "I'll be back", he said, echoing General McArthur, after hearing
the squad for the third Test. Those romantic souls who wish him well in
history as we have always wished him well on the field hope he will now
recognize that his day is done.

**** End ****

Is this a violation of copyright?  I hope it isn't!
Type setting and typos are my own.
++++
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--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  Neeran  Karnik  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dept. of Computer Science,      | Email: karnik@cs.umn.edu
University of Minnesota         | Tele : 612-339-5350 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~