Quite.

Botham NEVER offers any insight into what's happening in front of him. One would hope that his great cricketing brain would be able to explain the intricacies of a Test match to us lesser mortals, but he seems incapable of doing more than simply describing what we can all see. At least Warne occasionally offers his opinions re field placings, bowling changes, etc.

Botham has been prone to strange views for a while. Most notably concerning himself, he's a classic example of someone who played far too long and couldn't accept he wasn't the player he was. They've been showing highlights recently of that 86/87 Ashes tour, last time we won Down Under before this, and that was also the last time Botham did anything in a Test match, although he was still part of the England set up for five and a half more years. Towards the end of his career it was embarrassing, he looked like an overweight club cricketer strolling up and bowling medium slow, but the selectors kept on bringing him back here and there. The selectors finally ditched him in 1992, and he hung around for one more season of first class cricket hoping for a recall before calling it a day. He then launched a bizarre parting shot against the selectors saying that they should have picked him against the Aussies in 1993, but they were scared to pick him because if he'd succeeded they'd have had egg on their faces for dropping him in the first place. The 93 Aussies would have loved to have had a bash at Botham for old times sake just like our players now would have loved to have smashed an ageing out of shape Warne in this series.
As a commentator I think I gave up on him in around 1999 when England were at probably our lowest ebb after the home world cup debacle and then the home series defeat to New Zealand, Botham went on the campaign of getting rid of the old guard of Atherton, Caddick, Tufnell etc and the old guard, time to blood some new talent, and his suggestion for new talent was to bring back Graeme Hick (his old mate from Worcester) who was the same age!
That said, prior to 1987 he was the most exciting cricketer England has had and his son was a good RL player.

you do put a good argument forward,,but regards to warne he`d still be better than any of the spin bowlers the aussies have..as regards to botham i think your showing him a huge slice of disrespect,our best cricketer this country as ever produced who knows what he`s talking about.whether he hung around to long is debatable,for one reason he put bums on seats where ever he played.just remember the good times instead of doing what we english do best..slag people off

Facts:
Botham - Great cricketer, one of the all time greats.
Warne - Great cricketer, one of the all time greats.

Doesn't make them insightful, witty or great presenters/commentators.

And both have a lot to answer for in terms of hairstyles.

Well said BA - got it in a nutshell

This particular series must be killing Boycott with only one draw to date. Boycott; the ultimate 'I'm better than all of them/better in my day'

Boycs is Boycs - a real enigma,unique to the game as a player & commentator - having seen him play (i'm an Essex fan) in the CC & Tests I still can't give an opinion on him - he saved us games,lost us games but for some reason my greatest memory of him is the pain of having to sit through him & Chris Tavaré batting together,it was sheer purgatory..................

He has a fair point though. Look at the bowlers who he scored runs off, Lillee, Thomson, Hadlee, Holding, Garner, Roberts etc. He was still a great player in his 40s with Yorkshire!

tremendous player and his record is there for all to see - he missed a few years Test cricket in the mid 70s and so 'avoided' some of Thompson & Lillee and all the other great bowlers you mentioned etc but faced them later on
Looking through the list on Wikipedia of his opening partners is impressive reading and brings back lots of great cricketing memories - you had the skill of Edrich,brute force of Milburn and the flair of Randall to name a few - yes,Boycs was a great player but still the great enigma to me.

Yes, and for most of the time he faced them without much protection with regards to helmets and all the other modern day gear.

My own memory of Boycott is of a very selfish man, who put himself first and the team a distant second.....I recall his comeback test in '77 against the Aussies at Trent Bridge, when he ran out Derek Randall, who was in front of his own crowd......The crowd were absolutely livid with him, but then, typical Boycs, 3 or 4 hours later he was clocking up another century!!.....That innings summed him up perfectly.

I also remember reading Botham's autobiography, in which he describes being sent out to bat by Mike Brearley with the sole purpose to run out Boycott, because the Yorkshireman was ignoring the skipper's instructions.

Overall, a great batsman, but awful team man.

yeh,that's the impression he probably leaves us with...

same as Pietersen

think the jury is still out on that one - maybe a bit early to judge or prejudge him ? though the signs aren't positive are they ?

You just took me way back in time. This was my first test match with my old man, being a Notts lad Randall was my hero.

That soon?!?

Must have been one of his brisker knocks

....Typing error, should have read days and not hours....

Commentary from Melbourne:
Geoff Boycott: 'Well the decision to bowl first is wrong. All chance England had of winning the game has gone now. There's not enough in this pitch. They should have batted first'.

Jonathan Agnew: 'But Geoffrey, we've only had 12 minutes play'.

Geoff Boycott: ' Yes. That's why I'm the expert and you're the commentator'.

Just watching the 1st few overs from Sydney and spotted a wire fan in the new home top

Wire fans really do get everywhere. Wires on the telly.

fine player - did well as opening bat with Boycs (the poison chalice ?) but equally as confident/competant down the order - tremendous fielder of course and always I looked forward to the Essex v Notts games in the 70s & 80s

Despite his first Test match duck last night, Jonathan Trott currently has the second highest Test match batting average OF ALL TIME

Trott is averaging about 61 and is in his 18th Test match...to put that in context, Mike Hussey averaged 86 after his 18th Test match. His form went into steady decline since then punctuated with big scores here and there to keep his average still above 50.

Must be better than Lara and Tendulkar then.

whilst watching the 1st few overs of todays play do we actually get any credit for what we`ve achieved in australia...the press are repeatedly saying this is the worst aussie side ever(true).but how good have england been..lets give crediy where its due..roll on the 1 dayers i can see us give the aussies a good walloping in that as well..WELL DONE BOYS

www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/ ... 5955985591

www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/ ... 5955985591