Migara
Cricketer Of The Year
If you select peaks Mushtaq Mohammed's one match peak against rampaging West indies side takes the cake.
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Where does Imran Khan rank?
- Thread starter PlayerComparisons
- Start date
Prince EWS
Global Moderator
Not sure how much stock to put into it but my father has a theory that the massive extent of Botham's decline actually may have perversely helped his reputation with some people. He watched heaps of early career Botham and reckoned he was the jammiest cricketer of all time in that period - especially with the ball - and that even if he didn't decline in skill/fitness as he clearly did his record would have inevitably got much worse as the luck dried up.
Prince EWS
Global Moderator
If you watch highlights of Botham taking wickets during his dream run he really doesn't seem like someone who should have 100w@18 in 19 Tests, so I find it interesting even if it's very much 'drunk Australian uncle' of him to say so.
Does Botham's dramatic decline that essentially has people think of him as two different players in their mind actually increase his reputation with those people more than if he'd maintained the standard and naturally stopped taking so many jammy wickets off long hops and miscued slogs?
shortpitched713
International Captain
In between hit wicket and the normal caught outs playing a hard stroke (which every great bowler gets mind), he's taking wickets bowled/lbw/caught behind swinging the ball both ways, hurrying batsmen into tame dismissals with his bouncer, and generally being a menace of a bowler out there. And you see "jammy ****" whose luck was bound to run out. Mmkay.
Adorable Asshole
International Regular
He looks like a proper @trundler in the video.
nightprowler10
Global Moderator
Haha I'm thinking his run up is deceiving in that respect. Goes for a jog but some of those deliveries were proper fast. A bit of a Craig White effect.
Adorable Asshole
International Regular
Only some of them. Most of them are barely 125 kph
Prince EWS
Global Moderator
Daily reminder that White > Botham.
Prince EWS
Global Moderator
They actually do have extremely similar standardised bowling averages lol, it's a shame Botham's is fractionally better and I love longevity so much or I could totally Lillee/Hoggard this.
Brearley's theory was that Botham's immense strength made his apparent long hops come onto the bat quicker than expected. He also intimidated the lower order more effectively than many faster bowlers.
Brearley had a lot of faith in Botham and overbowled him, leading to a first bout of back trouble in 1980. Then he recommended him for the captaincy.
ankitj
Hall of Fame Member
So Shardul Thakur is Botham lite? No wonder they started calling Shardul beefy too!
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centurymaker
Cricketer Of The Year
I was thinking the exact same thing and was going to post it till I saw your post.
Chin Music
State 12th Man
My memory of Botham is that until '86 he was capable of bowling spells that really did look quite quick indeed, in between periods of him bowling not much quicker than Darren Stevens, no doubt due to him not exactly looking after himself away from the field.
However, what I certainly recall is him being recalled in '87 and basically being Darren Stevens paced until the end of his career. He had success in the ODI format still but was basically useless in tests as a bowler from that point.
shortpitched713
International Captain
In those clips he's more "skilled" rather than super quick, but he's quick enough that I don't think these are just fluky wickets, and he couldn't recreate this performance in somewhat different conditions.
Also find it weird that PEWS doesn't like Botham's bowling style, when it does look an awful lot like Hoggard's, in a way.
Also find it weird that PEWS doesn't like Botham's bowling style, when it does look an awful lot like Hoggard's, in a way.
It was a dead rubber match, England had a 4-man attack and Botham bowled 89 overs across the two innings. I expect he was bowling within himself. Compare to his 5-1 at Egblaston from earlier in the series - although the start of his run up is similar, he accelerates and powers through his delivery stride sand bowls a yard faster than he is in those highlights at the Oval.
The interesting point is not how that bowler took so many wickets overall, but why the Aussies still succumbed to him when he wasn't trying as hard or, by 86/87, only half fit.
IIRC Telegraph had Viv and Imran and 1 and 2, right?
I'd agree with that.
The Sean
Cricketer Of The Year
Yep, that's right. Berry's top 10 was:
1. Viv Richards
2. Imran Khan
3. Shane Warne
4. Malcolm Marshall
5. Ian Botham
6. Sachin Tendulkar
7. Adam Gilchrist
8. Jacques Kallis
9. Brian Lara
10. Wasim Akram
That's a pretty credible list.
