Ian Botham Quotes

To me, it doesn't matter how good you are. Sport is all about playing and competing. Whatever you do in cricket and in sport, enjoy it, be positive and try to win.

Aussies are big and empty, just like their country.

I don't ask my wife to face Michael Holding, so there's no reason why I should be changing nappies.

Pakistan is the sort of place every man should send his mother-in-law, for a month, with all expenses paid.

If I'd done a quarter of the things of which I'm accused, I'd be pickled in alcohol, I'd be a registered drug addict and would have sired half the children in the world's cricket-playing countries

What's happened has happened, so what can we do to make it better for tomorrow and the day after? That's why we're here

I want to stress again one aspect of the game which is most important. Never argue with an umpire.

Genghis Khan was a fascinating man and way ahead of his time.

For many sportsmen, coming face to face with irrefutable evidence of their mortality is the moment they dread above all others.

If you're playing against the Australians, you don't walk.

I'm not a great one for looking back.

I think I'd struggle to get excited by synchronised swimming.

There is nothing more exciting in sport when the top two countries in the world are battling for the Ashes

To win in Australia, for me, has to be the ultimate success because the Aussies live for sport

I think we are going to see exciting cricket all the way. We are watching the two best teams in the world-and I think England will eventually go on to pip Australia by a single Test

Cricket is full of theorists who can ruin your game in no time.

Sport can bring communities together and can release a lot of pent-up emotions

I don't think I've actually drunk a beer for 15 years, except a few Guinnesses in Dublin, where it's the law.

Soccer and cricket were my main sports growing up. I had trials as a soccer player with a few clubs interested, Crystal Palace being one, but it was cricket which became my chosen profession.

A few years ago England would have struggled to beat the Eskimos

The people in the villages had turned in on themselves. You can understand it. When you have a bad day on the field, what do you do? Talk to your teammates.

Retiring for good wasn't difficult. I knew at the time it was right. I was no longer capable of achieving the standards I'd set myself and there was no light at the end of the tunnel.

You wouldn't see those sorts of decisions given in village cricket, let alone Test cricket. The England players have my sympathy.

I watched children dying. That will be the image that will stay with me

If you can change three lives in 10, three lives in a hundred, that's got to be good, hasn't it?