Botham's Ashes: The myths and the legends
Mike Brearley, the former England captain, in the Observer , looks back at one of the greatest Test series of all time, 30 years on.
Siddhartha Talya
25-Feb-2013
Mike Brearley, the former England captain, in the Observer, looks back at one of the greatest Test series of all time, 30 years on.
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.
Had the Guardian website been around then, how would it have covered the series? Rob Smyth tries to find out.
Siddhartha Talya is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo