Ian Botham 81 vs West Indies 2nd test Lords 1984

[Flagfalls]

@robelinda2 Is there any footage of Bill Athey? I've heard that he played like a batsman from the 1930s.

[Panthera0nca]

@Flagfalls

...he stayed in the team for ages despite scoring very few runs.

[bolivianex]

Great footage the windies were awesome...

[mkeysou812]

Botham's problem was he was too full of hero worship of the West Indies. If he hadn't been so busy being matsey and idolising them all the time and maybe battled them with the aggression he displayed against Aussie, both he and England would have had a much better record against them.

[Imrankniazi]

@mkeysou812 Apart from his obvious Somerset buddies Richards and Garner, what kind of "matsey" attitude are you referring to? Was he not professional enough against them?

[mkeysou812]

@Imrankniazi Well maybe that's a bit harsh but Henry Blofeld wrote in a book that Botham would continually joke and buddy around with the slip cordon when he played and missed, and generally tried to curry favour with Richards and others on the field. His batting record against the Windies speaks for itself, I suspect he could have done much better if he'd been more ruthless against them.

[rohanmarkjay]

Wow, West Indies Team of the 80s. One word to sum them up. AWESOME!

Now that is what I call a Test Match winning bowling attack. Botham did well to score 50 against this attack. I wonder how batsman today would fare against this West Indies pace attack. I think I know the answer.

[ludocrat]

The only problem for England in opting for a featherbed pitch to try to counteract the WI quicks was that it made the England quicks looks like cannon fodder, which Gordon Greenidge merrily gunned down in less than a day with an incredible unbeaten double hundred.

Plan C, D and E didn't work either in the rest of the series. I remember it well!

[TopGearDog431]

@ludocrat I know got this match on dvd Greenidge just murderd them on the last day.

[ludocrat]

@TopGearDog431 ]Murder us Greenidge genuinely did.

No need to rub it in, mate. No need for that at all.