SPECTATOR SPORT
Stumped for a souvenir
Frank Keating
IT WAS a Test match of splendour. One for the archives. England's victory to level the series at 2-2 put a lustrous tin lid on an already enthralling rubber. Although the bombardment of bumpers looked at times to be nasty and gratuitous, all the players insisted afterwards that the whole sum- mer's contest had been conducted in chi- valrous spirit throughout. Certainly on Monday evening, at the end of a golden day as the sun began to drop over the higgledy-piggledy, boxed and botched London skyline beyond the Vauxhall End, most of the 22 combatants were still padding about in their stockinged feet matily honouring the foe. There had been a nice touch to prove it at the very last.
Botham had come in, cued by a divine stage manager, to hit the winning run. His supporters, scarcely daring to look, were divided in their prayers over whether our savoury celebrant of swipe would look to drive the thing with heady flamboyance straight off the tee and clean over the pavilion, which would have cemented his glorious legend for all time — or, if he would miss and be cleaned bowled, which would have made him look a complete prat. We were still sweating on Ian's decision when, obligingly, the bowler Lam- bert made it for him, trundling down a shortie outside leg-stump. All Botham could do was swivel and tonk it sweetly down to the long-leg boundary — and then flee from the resulting pandemonium.
Before taking guard, he had asked some people to grab and keep for him a stump for a souvenir. He has never been much bothered with such memorabilia, but this was special; well, in 14 Test match years he has never been on the winning side against the champions from the Caribbean. Having fought through the throng to the sanctuary of the pavilion staircase, Ian noticed the people he had asked to fetch him his souvenir. Each had a stump. Which one was for him? he asked. None, they said. Bad luck, they were entitled to souvenirs too, weren't they? Botham was understandably cheesed off. At which, just behind him on the steps, the West Indian wicket-keeper, Jeffrey Dujon (also in his last Test match, and that morning having overtaken Alan Knott's record of dismis- sals), tapped Botham on the backside and offered him the stump he had bagged himself for a souvenir. 'Here, Beefy, you deserve it more than me.' Botham was persuaded to take it. It was a lovely touch.
A staggering thing in a voluptuous match was the failure of Central Office to whip John Major back from Spain for Monday. What a photo opportunity bungled. Espe- cially as he's been sighted at all the four previous Tests. Or was he too engrossed in As the Crow Flies? Think of the mileage — ergo the votes. Pondering the future with the emperor, Viv; sharing a joke with Curtly; doffing Richie's wide-brimmed hat; discussing defiance and greatness with Goochie; or even accepting the offer of Beefy's souvenir stump. The old boy would have given it up happily too — to a Tory.
Well over four hours after the winning hit, the Botham clan (from wife to father- in-law, sisters, cousins and aunts; one of the villagy, pastoral-picnic, timeless things about him is that the family come too) were still drinking in the day. Soon they would be flying to the holiday home on Alderney, to give their beloved neigh- bours, Pat and John Arlott, the full griff. And hoping, on Tuesday morning, that the sea bass would be running.
A janitor opens the Hobbs' Gates. Final day of the final Test. However they frig about with fixtures, the end of the summer starts when you leave The Oval in August. All for the archives now.
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