LITMIR.BIZ

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one image to another any better if he had been trying to stitch me up. Exactly as I said it, the camera panned around to a woman with an enormous pair of norks …

      The only venue at which I tend to pre-plan a routine is at Old Trafford. I will say to Mark Lynch, the director: ‘Get us an aeroplane coming in.’ On cue, I will then announce: ‘Here they are. They’re coming to sunny Manchester on their holidays. Hundreds of ’em. Holiday season has begun, folks. In they flood from Barbados, Mauritius and Goa. They love the wet lands of Wigan, the spa town of Salford, they come here for the waters, you know. There are the two canals of Manchester as well, of course – the near canal and the far canal.’

      Sir Ian Botham – ‘I’ll make you famous’

      Our very own knight of the realm had an on-field presence that demanded royal respect. Within our environment, however, his title is less regal and he is regularly referred to as His Buffiness, His Buffikins or His Holy Buffness. Our ribbing of him is perhaps evidence of us mere mortals being able to drag him back to the real world. For on a cricket pitch, alongside his English counterparts, he was the first among unequals; capable of extraordinary feats at will. I was a witness to one such incident during my three-season stint as a first-class umpire.

      It was a televised Sunday League match at Taunton between Somerset and Middlesex. With three balls to go, and 12 runs required to win, Mr I.T. Botham was facing West Indies paceman Wayne Daniel, and I was standing at the business end. ‘Diamond’ Daniel was halfway through his approach to the crease when Both halted him in his tracks and, prodding the pitch, looked up to me and asked: ‘Who you backing in this one?’ I told him in short that a dozen required off three was a good contest, but the Songs of Praise theme tune was about to hit its first bar, so, if he didn’t mind awfully, could we get on with it?

      The first of the three balls to come down, a full-toss angled in from wide of the crease, was dispatched into the car park. Now, with the requirement reduced to six from two balls, had he asked me again who I was backing, I would have been starting to favour the batting side’s chances. Only a man of the most supreme ability would have dared to do what Beefy did next – he went and blocked one on purpose, just to enhance the sense of theatre. Middlesex’s senior players gathered around their fearsome fast bowler, waiting at the end of his run-up, to discuss where to bowl and where to position the field. The latter part of their deliberations turned out to be irrelevant, however, as another full bunger sailed out of the ground. The crowd went berserk, even the opposition must have appreciated his bombast, and, as I dismantled the stumps at the bowler’s end, I felt the full force of his willow across my backside. ‘You stick with me, pal, I’ll make you famous!’ he declared.

      What a player he was. Absolutely brilliant. Without question the best cricketer our country has ever produced. This was a bloke who could turn games on their head with bat, ball or slip catching. He dealt in moments of inspiration. He played on instinct. He didn’t think too much about it, just got on and did it. And how he did it!

      Shane Warne is from the same mould, and when playing cricket followed exactly the same rules. For Beefy and Warney the coach is what you use for travelling to the ground. There would be no interest for them in being told what to do or even being offered some well-meaning advice. Whereas others need a figure to point them in the right direction, these cricket geniuses had all the answers already. Their actions were always louder than any words. Botham’s ability has no doubt shaped his thinking on how players should deal with their own losses of form. His answer would always be to carry on your own merry way: to get out of a rut he would recommend a couple of glasses of wine, a day out fishing or a game of golf, not extra practice. You might lose form, he would argue, but what was lost could easily be recovered. For him there was not a great deal of thought required.

      Because that was what worked for him – he could come back to the nets, give it a thrash and he’d be off on form again. Others might see a more technical necessity, but he kept things very simple indeed. Of course, his fantastic ability made it that much easier for him to have that attitude, but it was a great way to be – an enviable way. Start talking about trigger movements and he would shoot you down in laughter. Let’s face it, we are always on the look-out for a new Botham, just as Australia will search fruitlessly for a new Warne. In all the time that they played, and since their departures, the search for a replica has been on. But you don’t unearth genius very often. For a long time now Australia have been seeking someone to bowl leg-spin for them, but no one will ever be able to match Warne.

      Beefy is one of life’s true alpha males, a real man’s man. So you can imagine the expression on his face when, in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks in the winter of 2008–9, we were forced to deal with heightened security on our return, which included intimate personal searches. Everything was so much tighter when we went back, and while Botham’s Daily Mirror colleague Oliver Holt, the newspaper’s chief sports writer, somehow managed to evade the stringent identification checks with a flash of his 2008 FA Cup final accreditation, Beefy was being handled in quite a different way. Let’s just say the new multi-frisking was leaving nothing to chance. In fact, anything that could pass for a weapon was being given the once over before entry to the ground was permitted. So you can imagine the ire etched on English cricket’s greatest-ever player’s clock when this particular cupping incident took place on the opening day of the Chandigarh Test match. They carried it out with far too much enthusiasm, rather like the school nurse when she put you through that dreaded cough test in your medicals.

      At times he was like a human whirlwind on the field of play. Few could match his velocity. Neither can they off it. Beefy is not an opponent you want to take on, particularly after play, because that is the time he really comes into his own. He has an unbelievable thirst. In truth, he should carry a health warning, because it’s not good to spend any length of time around him. Since his playing days there have been three distinct tactics among us fellow broadcasters: you have a general policy of avoidance, you make a pre-planned exit or you take your turn – ‘You’re with Beefy tonight, good luck.’ People have become adept at applying these over a decade and it seems to work a treat. Needless to say, avoidance has been my primary tactic, but I have also developed a hip shuffle towards the exit that those dancing queens Darren Gough and Mark Ramprakash would be proud of.

      It’s only when you have taken your turn that you realise there’s only one bloke who can live the way he does. Now I like a beer, but I can’t drink much. He doesn’t, but he can. He is massively into wine, and he drinks flagons of the stuff. I can have an odd glass but it has never done much for me. He is really into his vineyards and reading labels on the bottles, whereas I simply want a good old-fashioned pint in my hand, something I have never seen him armed with. I have seen him with copious amounts of wine, but he doesn’t go into pubs. He will search out wineries and I will seek pubs. We are pretty much chalk and cheese.

      Whatever your chosen tipple, you have got to be able to get up for work in the morning, and so you have to get your drinking with Beefy (long game or short) down to a fine art. Have a glass with him and then clear off sharpish is the safest bet. His mates always look thirsty too, so one must keep alert. Others among the Sky crew are also into nice wines, particularly Lord Gower, but although he would probably spend more time with Beefy than anybody, he knows when to dodge in and out. He’s got Beefy avoidance down to a tee.

      God help you if you spend an entire evening in Botham’s company – it can do horrendous things to your insides. For a long time I wondered how on earth he could get larrupped and still turn up for work the next morning as though he had been on carrot juice and cucumber slices. I discovered that his recuperative powers are catalysed by an uncomplicated concoction. There is nothing that Beefy can neck that four cans of Red Bull, three black coffees, two enormous belches and a huge fart won’t fix the next morning. Once that combination has been taken in and let out, he’s back to normal. It’s rather like kick-starting an old motor engine. In fact, he reminds me of the 1950s-style cars that you had to crank at the front to start. Once attended to, the engine is running again and he’s ready to rock.

      We are all very different characters within our commentary team and that means we have some very different views. For example, the last time we were in South Africa Beefy went off for a couple of days on safari and came back with some evidence of

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