Sir Ian Botham is a big fan of Bazball: ‘Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes together are a lethal combination’

Cricketing legend Sir Ian Botham, 66, talks about his new project, Ben Stokes, losing Shane Warne and why his surgeon has barred more charity walks.

Look, two months ago this was a totally different language to me and, to be quite frank, it still is. I’m not going to pontificate about things I don’t know about. I’m in the process of learning.

Basically it’s an online experience and you can go for a walk around Ian’s Room, as I think the tech experts Caduceus call it. We will cover everything from fishing, golfing, playing a bit of cricket and football withScunthorpe United to my interest in cars, watches and wines.

Yeah, basically, that’s it exactly.

A ‘rest’, yeah. There will be a section about that in the metaverse. There won’t be any punches pulled, I can assure you. But any time I hit Richard Hadlee into the grandstand I was more than happy. He was a great competitor.

As a combination, it’s a lethal cocktail. You’ve got Baz [England coach Brendon McCullum], who I think was one of the most exciting cricketers I’ve seen in my career, and then you’ve got Ben Stokes and he’s box office.

There’s not many players in the history of the game that actually empty the bar. I’d like to think I was in the let’s-get-them-out-the-bar brigade and Ben Stokes certainly is.

It would have been a lot better than who I had in my corner at the time.

I think we need to reshuffle the formats – not play long periods without any red-ball cricket and then white ball takes over for a month. It’s got to be integrated. The players can adapt.

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