1) In 1977 he debuted playing The Ashes in England. In 2 games he took 2 five-wicket hauls, and his series bowling average was 20.20. SR was 43.8. If that is "minimal success" for you, I'd love to know your definition of "great success".
2) I compared bowling stats, as my original post says. I could compare batting stats too, in which Imran also comes out superior. I leave it to you as homework.
3) I took the best contiguous period in Botham's career to compare. If you wanna include 1982, I'll have to include the series against India (AVG 38.8, SR 84.8 {that's like Sobers's quality bowling
}), return series against India (AVG 35.5, SR 62.3) and the next Ashes in which he took wickets at an abysmal average of 40.5 and struck at 71.2. Botham's peak ends up a lot worse if we include 1982.
Imran >>>>> Botham. Let's move on.