He’s no more the new Ian Botham than I was the new Garry

“He’s no more the new Ian Botham than I was the new Garry Sobers, but it’s an easy way for journalists to lose a paragraph. Anyway, I was a bowling all-rounder, initially, and he’s a batting all-rounder. But I like the way he takes the game to the opposition, and I think the World Cup is a wonderful stage for him.”When Botham left the cricketing stage, in 1993, he did so emphatically. At first he declined “about a thousand offers a month” to play in charity games, benefits and the like Now it is down to about 100. He has not wielded a bat nor bowled a ball since his retirement, nor does he intend to, but his competitive juices flow as freely as ever. “If I go with Mike Atherton for a night’s sea trout fishing, or with a group of mates to Scotland, we’ll have wagers on the biggest fish, most fish, first fish, you name it.”Similarly, he has been known to strike the odd bet on the golf course. He has a handicap of six, and hopes to become good enough to play county golf, yet derides a recently publicised notion that he might join the senior tour when he is 50, in 2005.

“In every sport you find good club players who think they’re the bees’ knees, but there is an enormous gap between them and the pros,” he says His all-time sporting hero is Jack Nicklaus. They met once, when Nicklaus came over for the opening of a course in Wales, and played a round with Ian Woosnam Botham caddied for Woosnam that day “And Jack knew who I was. I was surprised.”By now, we have bonded sufficiently for me to pop the question. How’s Liam getting on? Botham talks proudly about his son’s achievements playing rugby for Cardiff, where he was recently voted Most Improved Player. He chortles when I remind him that he got ratty with me when I mentioned Liam last time, but that was because Liam was then trying to make it as a professional cricketer, and insensitive hacks kept drawing parallels with the old man So let us reverse the comparison.

How good was Botham Snr at rugby? “I played one game, at school I was sent off after 20 minutes Misinterpretation of the rules.” Well I never.. THE SEVENTH cricket World Cup is only five days old, and already several pieces of conventional wisdom have had to be torn up. They said the English spring weather would cause havoc with these early group matches Yet the first seven matches all finished in the day. The Duckworth-Lewis system has been the butt of so many jokes, you may have missed the fact that it hasn’t actually come into play They said the white ball would swing prodigiously.

It’s true that some bowlers have had trouble controlling it, but those have tended to be the ones who swing the ball early, like reckless Eric Upashantha of Sri Lanka. It’s true that Glenn McGrath, despite taking the precaution of coming on first change, bowled six wides against Scotland at Worcester on Sunday, but then Worcester is a big-swinging ground and McGrath had problems controlling the red ball in England this time two years ago. (By mid-June, his control was absolute, so batsmen should make hay while the sun is not shining.)
There was plenty of movement at Lord’s on Friday, but that was largely off the seam. England’s six seamers, not always noted for their reliability, had no trouble putting it “there or thereabouts” once their early nerves had settled. (It was hardly surprising that Ian Austin had the most butterflies in his stomach: there’s more room in there. And surely even he could see that it was perverse of the selectors to prefer him to Angus Fraser, when the match was on Fraser’s home ground and conditions were perfect for him.)They said any captain winning the toss would automatically put his opponents in. And certainly Alec Stewart – a hopeless tosser no longer, now that he is flipping not calling – has had no hesitation in electing to field.

But Mohammad Azharuddin chose to bat first at Hove on Saturday, and so did Wasim Akram at Bristol on Sunday. Wasim won the match, with assistance from the West Indian selectors, who were so wary of Shoaib Akhtar that they picked eight batsmen and only three proper bowlers.Azharuddin finished on the losing side, but only narrowly, and not because of his decision. On a day when 275 was par, India were restricted to 253 by South Africa’s supernatural fielding. It’s not just catches that win matches: sliding stops and baseball throws do too.They said these early matches would be dominated by the bowlers. But there were 400 runs at Lord’s, 500 at Hove, 460 at Taunton from Zimbabwe and Kenya, 430 at Bristol, and 360 at Worcester.