Watch: Against Pakistan at Lord’s in 1978, Ian Botham followed his first-innings 108 with a career-best haul of 8-34.
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A Packer-depleted Pakistan were not expected to be a threat for a strong England side. They had lost the first of the three Tests, at Edgbaston, by an innings.
Botham, England’s young all-rounder, had returned from their tour to New Zealand with 212 runs at 70.67 and 13 wickets at 16.07 from three Test matches. He got a lone wicket in Edgbaston, but he blasted a 140-ball 100.
He improved on that at Lord’s. After the first day was washed out in entirety, Botham emerged in the second afternoon at 134-5, and reached his hundred by stumps. He fell next morning for a 110-ball 108, lifting England to 364.
Pakistan then folded for 105 against Bob Willis (5-47) and Phil Edmonds (4-6). Botham bowled five overs without a wicket, though he got Mudassar Nazar caught behind early when Pakistan followed on.
Nevertheless, Pakistan finished day three on 96-2, and seemed set to be able to make England bat again. On the previous day, the umpires had changed the ball after it had gone out of shape.
However, as “the wind veered” on the fourth morning, Mike Brearley brought Botham on at the Nursery End to give Willis, his main fast bowler, a change of end. Pakistan were bowled out for 139.
“On a cloudless day, Botham swung the ball in astounding fashion. He beat the bat with three or four outswingers an over,” described the Wisden Almanack. Only Miandad put up a fight, with a 71-ball 22.
Botham finished with 8-34, the best Test match figures since Jim Laker’s 9-37 and 10-53 against Australia in Old Trafford. After seven Test matches, his career record stood at 445 runs at 55.62 with three hundreds, and 36 wickets at 18.41 with five five-wicket hauls.
In another 14 Test matches, he would break Vinoo Mankad’s record for the fastest 1,000 run-100 wicket double in Test cricket. He would follow that with a spectacular all-round show in the Bombay Test match of 1980/81, and the aura would scale incredible heights in the summer of 1981.
Botham’s feat at Lord’s also remains the only instance of a cricketer scoring a hundred and taking an eight-wicket haul in the same Test match.
