England cricket legend Sir Ian Botham was rescued by his former rival after a fall into a crocodile-infested river in Australia.
The 68-year-old was on a four-day fishing trip with his former Ashes rival Merv Hughes Moyle River in Australia’s Northern Territory.
However, ‘Beefy’ Botham was involved in a scary incident when his flip-flops got tangled on a rope as he attempted to board a boat, which sent him tumbling into the river.
Hughes, 62, acted quickly to help pull Botham out of the water, and the former England international escaped with heavy bruising to the side of his torso.
‘I was out of the water quicker than I went in it. Quite a few sets of eyes were having a peep at me,’ Botham said.
‘Luckily I had no time to think about what was in the water.’
It was also claimed that bull sharks were swimming near the boat Botham and Hughes was on.
‘The guys were brilliant, it was just one of those accidents,’ Botham said.
‘It was all very quick and I’m OK now.’
Botham and Hughes shared a rivalry during England’s clashes with Australia in the 1980s.
During the 1986 Ashes, Botham scored 22 runs off a single Hughes over, a record in the tournament’s history at the time.
Hughes also revealed the brutal dig he received from Botham during the 1986 Ashes in the book book The Ashes Match of My Life.
‘It got ugly when Botham made 22 runs from a single over, scoring 2, 2, 4, 6, 4 and 4 off me. I am embarrassed to say it was a record for the most runs off an over in an Ashes Test. I would check the record books, desperately hoping some poor soul had been worse, and while I found there was once 24 scored off an over, it was from an eight-ball over,’ Hughes wrote.
‘At tea on the second day, after Botham was finally out for 138, I was sitting outside our changing room watching the rain come down and trying to understand what had just happened when Botham came out of England’s room. ‘You probably don’t remember me,’ I said to him. ‘But I was at a coaching clinic you did at Benalla when you played grade cricket here in the 1970s.’
‘‘Did I give you any good advice?’ he asked. ‘I told you I wanted to be a fast bowler, but you said I should take up tennis or golf because they were more enjoyable and better paid.’ He got up to leave, turned to me and said, ‘You should have listened to me.’
‘I would think about those words during the next six years as I established myself as a Test player. I took 8-87 against the West Indies at Perth a year after being humbled in Brisbane, and then regained the Ashes in 1989 against an England side containing Botham. I had proved I was good enough to play for Australia.’
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