Lord's Afraid Of Giving Botham Too Much Say (05 Apr 1996)

5 April 1996

Lord`s afraid of giving Botham too much say

By Robert Philip

"They bring him out of the loft, take the dust sheet off, give him a pink gin and sit him there. He can`t go out of a 30-mile radius in London because he`s normally too pissed to get back. So he sits there at Lord`s saying `. . hair. They tell me has had some of that cannabis stuff`. Too many people in cricket live in the past."

IAN Botham may have to consider reworking his famously forthright description of the archetypal international selector should England have the courage and foresight to vote him into high office.

The prospect of Botham becoming an England selector may cause those half-dozing under the dust sheets at Lord`s to choke on their aforementioned pink gins, but what a rousing reception would surely await him in the dressing-room.

Ray Illingworth, according to reports, reckons the only thing Botham would be good for is `organising the after-match party`; since critics of the current and recent England regimes could claim - with perfect justification - that those who have wielded power of late could not organise the proverbial piss-up in a brewery, then Botham`s parties would represent an immediate improvement.

Such sniping from the Establishment, though not unexpected, is ludicrously presumptuous; for if any individual can haul the England players out of their post-World Cup despondency, then it is most certainly Botham. Part Biggles, part Churchill, part Just William, Botham will use the full powers of his past heroics, his colourful yet inspirational oratory and his mischievous highjinks to ensure England never again look as though they are merely going through the motions as they did this winter.

He was the greatest match-winner - bar none - British sport has ever known, a swashbuckling superman who struck terror into the hearts of the opposition every time he began his run-up or swaggered out to the crease swinging that great bat like Excalibur.

Be certain, there are those who will seek to furnish us with all manner of reasons why Botham is unsuitable for the job of selector, but do not be misled. Those snoring away up in the Lord`s loft are simply afraid the players will come to regard Botham as the supreme boss.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (http.//www.telegraph.co.uk)