Botham's Ashes: The myths and the legends

The first thing I should say is that the train of events in 1981 was extremely fortuitous. In that third Test at Headingley, for a start, Ian Botham and Graham Dilley, whose second-innings partnership of 117 turned the match, could have been out at any moment. Kim Hughes and the Australians were criticised for bowling too wide to them and it was true, they should have tightened their line. But on any other day they would have edged rather than missed, or edged more thinly, or the ball would have landed differently from one of the thick edges.