A gripping biography of the man who shook cricket to its foundations and became a legendary sporting great in the process Ian Botham arrived on the international scene just in time to ride sport's first big financial wave and exploit the Thatcherite mantra of go-out-and-get-what-you-want. In an era short on glamour and personalities, he brought an irresistible cocktail of talent, energy, and swagger. For this he won himself a fund of public goodwill, a fund he sometimes threatened to drain but uncannily managed to replenish. Before Botham, many saw cricket as a very staid, very boring game. He played it with an irreverent dash that stuck up two fingers at the cricket establishment. He wore striped blazers and strange hats, sported long hair and droopy moustaches. He got into trouble over fights, drugs, and girls, and was even banned from playing at one point. But all this would have meant little had he not been able to keep on achieving remarkable things--as he did with impeccable timing and implausible frequency. He had an insatiable appetite, and an uncanny knack, for creating tales of heroism, but if he failed on that score there was always the chance of a scandal or two. He gave the media everything they needed for front pages and back, and some newspapers discovered that it didn't necessarily matter if the story was true or not, as long as he was in it.

Simon Wilde has been cricket correspondent at Sunday Times and the Times since 1998. Three of his books have been short-listed for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award: Letting Rip: The Fast Bowling Threat from Lillee to Waqar; Ranji: A Genius Rich and Strange; and Shane Warne: Portrait of a Flawed Genius.