Extract from:
Chapter 16
Tom's Boys
Tom’s contribution to the development of Botham the batsman was limited: “I think I was good for him because I allowed him to develop the way he naturally batted.” His contribution to the development of Botham the slip fielder was also limited, though it is acknowledged by Ian himself: “I always felt that one of the most frustrating things as a bowler was when you got the outside edge and it dropped short of the slips. So I came a little closer, and I took a couple of catches. I remember Tom and I discussing it. With Tom you could always sit down and talk something over. If he didn’t agree with you but you explained why you did it, he’d listen. And he said, ‘If that’s the way you feel, field closer. Go out and prove people wrong.’ I took some stick over the years, but I’m sure I took a few sharp chances that wouldn’t have reached me if I’d stayed put.”
Botham’s natural talent with the bat and in the slips would have flowered without Tom’s presence – but would Botham the bowler have happened? “The year he was at Lord’s,” Tom says, “they thought he was a joke bowler; they didn’t let him bowl.”
Tom remembers their conversation back at Taunton.
“How much bowling are you getting?”
“They think I’m a joke.”
“Do you want to bowl?”
“Well, yes, of course I want to bowl.”
“Well, if you want to bowl, I’ll work with you because I think you could bowl.”
“There were times when I got a bit down,” Ian recalls. “But Tom kept pegging away at me. ‘You’re an all-rounder, you can be a very good one – so get on with it.’ He had a lot of time, a lot of patience and he gave me a great deal of encouragement. As a youngster, if you’ve got somebody like that pushing away at you, it’s a real buzz. I owe him a lot.
“We talked about what length to bowl and how to bowl at the different batsmen but, more than anything, he worked on my thinking, my mental strength. He and Closey, they were magnificent. Those two guys gave me my direction. They encouraged me, and they kept my feet on the ground.”
In 1972 he was a joke bowler at Lord’s. In August 1986, at The Oval, he was nipping the ball back into the pads of New Zealand’s Jeff Crowe and celebrating as the umpire’s raised finger took him past Dennis Lillee to become the greatest wicket-taker in the history of Test cricket. To this day, he remains England’s greatest.
“I can honestly say that he was one of the most receptive people I’ve ever worked with,” Tom says. “He learned to swing the ball both ways in a very short time, literally in weeks, and to have control in doing it. He had so much ability to grasp what was going on around him and to work. He was a classic example of somebody interpreting what he learned within his own physical and mental capabilities.
“Closey said, ‘He’s going to be a fast bowler, lad.’ And I’d say, ‘No, he isn’t. He hasn’t got an action to bowl quick, quick, quick. He’s got an action to bowl at the top end of fast medium.’ There were times when we’d walk onto the field arguing.
“Tiger said to me, ‘Lots of people will offer you help. In the end it’s down to you to think through what you’ve been offered. It’ll be down to your judgement in the end.’ It really is down to the individual: the learning, the ability to teach yourself.
“You have to do so much for yourself – and Ian did. People may think that life came easy to him as a cricketer, but he worked damn hard. He really did. I have as much admiration for him in the way he buckled down as for anybody I’ve ever been with.”