Ian Botham on Bazball: ‘I’ll throw something at the television’
Former England cricketer Ian Botham has questioned Ben Stokes and England’s way of playing cricket and has said that while their performance at Perth was ‘horrendous’, if they played the same style of cricket, they might as well go home. England have come into this Ashes series better prepared than ever before, thanks to a healthy contingent of pace options that had Australia rattled in the first innings at the Optus Stadium. “It (Perth) was horrendous, there’s no other word for it. England needs to fire up and fire up quickly. I’m fed up of hearing, ‘this is the way we play’. If I hear it once more, I think I’ll throw something at the television. If that’s the way you play, you might as well go home now because it’s going to be 5-0,” Botham, 70, said to the PA News Agency. “They probably won’t like me saying that, but they need to get their heads around it. I want more pride when I see people pulling that sweater on.” In Perth, it seemed …
