Anil said:
he was really not...and casting aspersions on my knowledge doesn't change facts....
This is absolutely not borne by facts.
Botham's
captaincy woes led to complete breakdown of the cricketer and a devastating slump in his performance with bat as well as ball. It just so happened that 9 of these 12 tests (in which he captained England) were against West Indies.
He did not play them again till 1984. Then in the 5 test matches he scored
1st test :
64 (top scorer out of 191) and
38
2nd test :
30 and
81 (second top scorer)
3rd test :
45(second top scorer) and
14
5th test :
14 and
54 (top scorer)
Only in the 4th test he did not make a substantial contribution with the bat.
He was England's second highest scorer in the series and also had the second highest average (347 runs at 34.7). Only Lamb was above him and marginally so with 386 runs.
Gower 19.0, Gatting 16.2, Randall 0.5, Chris Broad 24.4, Fowler 26.0 were among the batsmen below him as England sere decimated 5-0 by an attack that included :-
Marshall, Garner, Holding and Davis !!
If this (Botham's batting in this series) is a display of inept batting againsy fast bowling I have nothing to say.
The next series IN WEST INDIES, cxertainly saw a worse performance with an average of 16.8 with the bat. But remember England were again decimated 5-0 with regular batsmen averaging as under :-
Gooch 27, Lamb 22, David Smith 20, Peter Willey 17, Gating 8.0. Gower was slightly better at 37. England did not hit a single century in the series.
If you tell me that Gooch could not play fast bowling, I will willingly concede Botham couldnt too.
He never played West Indies again except when he was brought back for one match in 1991 and scored 47 not out in the first innings against an attack that included Ambrose, Patterson, Walsh and Marshall.
Finally, lots of things happen in a career as long as Botham's and one needs to look at stats with a lot of caution, particularly way down in time.
Lots of batsmen may have fared badky in a couple of series against West Indies but you must look at his entire record.
Besides what I mentioned about the 1984 series, here are some of his innings against very good pace attacks.
1. 103 and 30 not out against NZL at Jade Stadium Feb 1978 : Bowlers were Hadlee, Collinge and Chatfield
2. 119 not out (out of 273) vs Australia at Melbourne 1980Bowlers - Lillee, Pascoe, Dymock
3. 50 and 149 not out vs Australia Headingley July 81Lillee Alderman, Lawson
4. 118 vs Australia at Old Trafford Aug 1981Lillee, Alderman and Whitney
5. 103 vs NZL at Trentbridge Aug 1983Hadlee, Cairns, Snedden
6 and 7. 138 and 70 vs NZL Basin Resrve and Eden Park Jan 1984Hadlee, Cairns, Snedden, Chatfield
8 & 9. 60 at Headingly and 85 at Lords vs Aussies in summer 1985Mcdermott, Jeff Thomson, Lawson
10. 138 in Nov 1986 vs Aussies at BrisbaneMerv Hughes and Bruce Reid.
Surely these are very good new ball attacks. Not many current world sides wouldnt kill for such attacks. Every one of them (barring maybe the last one) has one great/near great fast bowler and one or more other very good ones at the other end.
No sir. These runs could not be scored by a batsman who couldnt play fast bowling. Not only are these good attacks but they were NOT having great spinners in these sides as have Australia and Sri Lanka today and as India have had most of the time. Thus fast bowling was standard fare in these matches.
No. I completely disagree that Botham could not handle fast bowling.
What you can say is that his career figures against West Indies, over all are not great, and that is true though understandable.
