The mini- autobiography of Sir Ian Botham’s Cricket Bat
I am a cricket bat, one of the most well known in the world. I am made from the finest English willow known to man. I have been held by the sweaty palms of Sir Ian Botham and experienced so much in my celebrated lifetime. I am a cricket bat.
I started off as a piece of lifeless wood in Australia. My home, the forest that I lived in had been the origin, the birthplace of many bats of legend in the past, including those of Sir Donald Bradman (of when he hit his famous 304 against England in Nottingham) and Vivian Richards.
As soon as I had been chopped out by the blade of the axe, I heard the woodsman talk to his partner, saying: “Beefy told us that he wanted a new bat. He said he prefers a short, yet heavy one. This, I think will be the perfect wood to use.” I had heard of this guy called Beefy, his real name was Ian Botham, I think. He was said to be an emerging star from England, from Somerset, and he was soon to be my family, my best friend.
After the exhausting procedure of being tampered with, after they hit me, carved me, glued my handle on and physically tortured me, the manufacturers finally stuck the endorsement stickers on and I was sent to England. The 40 day journey via a cargo ship was extremely tedious and I was relieved to get out into the fresh air of England, even though I had arrived in winter. But my travelling was not finished yet. I had a long drive from Southampton Docks to Somerset.
After I got delivered to Beefy, I knew immediately that he was the perfect person for my services. As he gave me a few a practise swings I could feel the warmth from his soft hands tingling from my handle, down my spine. It was a sensational feeling. He then put me down on an oak surface and looked at me saying, “You are the perfect one. I can’t wait to use you.” He was the only person to have genuinely spoken to me. I felt so privileged from that point onwards. A real human talked to me! I just wanted to reach out and kiss him, as I had seen others do. I just wanted to say “Thank you,” to him, but I couldn’t. So I lay there, as a lifeless piece of wood and stared back at him.
The following day, I was introduced to the place that was to be my office, the place where I worked for most of my life, the England training camp. We bats called it ‘the Trenches.’ Beefy was kind enough to only use me for international matches, but some of my unfortunate friends had to play for their owner’s respective county, as well as for England. I was put through my paces thoroughly during my first months in the hands of Ian and was considered as his training bat and his substitute bat for matches. I wasn’t happy with this and I wanted to prove that I was fit for the job of being his primary bat.
It took a long time to convince Beefy that I could be a reliable top-quality bat, which could succeed against the tough opposition, from the likes of top nations such as the West Indies. As I enjoyed a great run of form along with Ian, I was growing in confidence and the amount of praise I received only consolidated this. The more I relaxed, the more potent I was against the likes of Richard Hadlee, Imran Khan, Malcolm Marshall and Kapil Dev. I contributed immensely to Ian’s fantastic achievements in the international game and assisted his reputation as being the one of the world’s best early big-hitting batters in the 20th century.
After my emotional rollercoaster with Ian, I was handed down to his equally skilled son Liam. His final words to me were, “I hope you serve my son as loyally as you did to me. Good luck and thank you.” After I heard these comments I began crying out rainwater that had been stuck in my wood many years before. Beefy hugged and consoled me before he handed me over to Liam. His touch was similar to his father’s. I tried to do the best I could for him but I couldn’t produce the results. I was simply too old. I don’t think he was skilled enough either. A season after he batted with me, he abandoned me. I watched him play with a bigger ball than the cricket ball that I had been smashing all over the place. A ball that was not perfectly round. In my opinion it was the worst decision you could ever make. He decided to play rugby.
