Ian Botham set to be knighted

Arise Sir Ian: Botham is set for royal recognition © Getty Images

According to a report in Saturday's Daily Mirror, Ian Botham is set to receive a knighthood in the Queen's Birthday Honours next month, in recognition of his tireless campaigning for Leukaemia Research, for which he has raised more than £10million through 11 arduous charity walks over the course of 22 years.

A senior Whitehall source told the Mirror: "Ian Botham was a fabulous cricketer but his selfless charity work is out of this world. His fund-raising is first-class and no one, absolutely no one, deserves an honour more than him.

"At a time when the honours system has been in the spotlight, his knighthood will be deserved recognition of outstanding public service."

Botham was inspired after visiting a hospital in Taunton, Somerset, to have treatment for a broken toe. He walked into a children's ward and was told they were dying of leukaemia. The fatality rate was 80 per cent then, but these days it is 20 per cent, thanks in part to research his efforts have helped to fund.

His first charity walk was in 1985, a 900-mile trek from John O'Groats to Land's End, and he was on another last year, after turning 50, when Cricinfo's Andrew Miller joined him for the London leg.

Miller recalls: "Botham's natural walking pace would put most of London's joggers to shame. By the end of the walk, Piers Morgan [the former Mirror editor] looked redder and sweatier than the victim of a tabloid sting, and my shins felt as though they had been pounded by a jackhammer."

Botham is already an OBE, as well as receiving the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004.