Huge misjustice IMHO, as I've said many times before, English captain who went to OZ and won every comp (yes it was a ****e Oz team, but that didn't stop Botham from becoming legendary for performances against them), his performances in First-class was incredible which earned him those 30 Tests before a century, in a time we had not many good performers in the middle-order.
His middle section of his career after he broke that 100 bogey was World-class
To use that clip of his catching rather neglects that I think he won two catches of the Summer thingies in OZ, caught two brilliant catches off Willis to help enable the "greatest" Ashes comeback, ran out Zaheer Abbas with a sublime piece of fielding.
Also the ****ing reverse sweep, was as I maintain again and again the right shot to play he just played it badly. Put English cricket back twenty years, with risk averseness, when he should be remembered for trying to innovate and move us on, we were still in a winning position in that match but crap conventional shots and silly run-outs afterwards are not mentioned.
If I do have a criticism it is clearly fitness, comparisons to Gooch which were often when they were both big performers in County cricket who hadn't quite performed in Tests, both pretty tubby, was Gooch went on to train with West Ham, become incredibly fit and had a remarkable latter career, Gatt unfortunately decided to take up residence in the Lords tea-rooms, hence the disparity in careers.
