A Quote by Ian Botham

You wouldn't see those sorts of decisions given in village cricket, let alone Test cricket. The England players have my sympathy. — © Ian Botham
You wouldn't see those sorts of decisions given in village cricket, let alone Test cricket. The England players have my sympathy.
Test cricket is a different sort of cricket altogether. Some players who are good for one-day cricket may be a handicap in a Test match.
There are fans of Twenty20 cricket, and we need to ensure that we give them the cricket they want to see. We need to keep Test cricket alive, because there is a section of fans who love and worship Test cricket and have basically helped this game grow, and they are as important as anybody else.
If you look at cricket per se, if you didn't have T20 cricket, Test cricket will die. People don't realise. You just play Test cricket, and don't play one-day cricket and T20 cricket, and speak to me after 10 years. The economics will just not allow the game to survive.
International cricket and Test cricket in particular is hard and you are going to get injuries but, if you've got a strong pool of players to pick from who can all come in and do a job, well that can only be a good thing for English cricket.
If you are going to raise youngsters for Test cricket that don't have the experience, you can't stick them into T20. You've got to teach them first how to play Test cricket, and when they're good enough for Test cricket and if they want to play both formats, then they can.
Obviously, international cricket is the main cricket you want to play, especially Test cricket.
I see a tough time for our cricket. Senior players will establish records and go home, but our cricket will struggle. Young players aren't playing with the freedom that they should enjoy. The selectors and the cricket board should take responsibility for that.
My biggest concern is that Test cricket and Twenty20 cricket are competing too much. They should be complementing each other and the more they clash the more damaging it will be for cricket.
I respect Test cricket a lot. Once I got into the Test team, I learnt so much about international cricket and realised it's not so different.
Village cricket spread fast through the land. In those days before it became scientific, cricket was the best game in the world to watch, with its rapid sequence of amusing incidents, each ball a potential crisis!
I've been to a lot of places to play cricket, but cricket and training get in the way! In India, all you see is the hotel and the cricket ground.
Although I was good at my studies, I also thought to myself that I should play cricket as well. And when the cricket team that consisted of the boys from our village used to play, I was able to play with the team that had older players.
For its health, cricket needs to look outward to the sharpest minds, to people who sustain and nurture brands and often take hard but necessary decisions. Cricket cannot be bound by cricketing minds alone.
Alex Hales has tightened up his game from South Africa and learned about Test cricket. It's great when you see someone who doesn't quite nail it, but goes away and works away at it, come back a person who understands more about Test cricket.
In one sense, what happens for me outside of cricket gives me that break - the farming means I have a really different life outside of cricket; it's not just cricket, cricket, cricket for 12 months of the year.
I want to improve cricket at the district level because lot of hardworking players come from districts. We have produced so many great players, but now we don't have players in the Indian team. My intention is to work hard for the game of cricket.
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