At the peak of an apartheid-shortened career Lindsay, batting at No 6, once made 606 runs in a series against Australia and, in the First Test, with the Springboks 126 behind, hit 182 with five sixes and made the game South Africa's. Memories of Botham in 1981.In rating Dujon, flair is often confused with fair because Greenidge, Haynes, Richards and Co were a hard act to follow. Thus far, the unquestionable all-rounder among wicketkeepers is England's Alan Knott If Botham was "Beefy" then Knott was "Gristly". His batting was a cocktail of defensive concentration, impish distraction, attacking flair, survival and success and, much to the chagrin of coaches, the unorthodox. Against Lillee and Thomson in 1974 his batting record was second only to that of Tony Greig, another unorthodox all-rounder.As for the next, Australian sports fans are ever-ready to elevate their heroes to heavenly status, and find it happily coincidental that Adam Gilchrist spent his childhood in the dairy farming area of northern New South Wales, where straw, stables and bright stars are topics of conversation.And, when they hear on the radio the song "I scored a hundred in the backyard at Mum's", they think of Gilchrist, knowing that he developed his keen eye playing with his mates on an uneven pitch, using an old, battered bat to belt a tennis ball roughly wrapped in electrical tape to make it swing more erratically.Gilchrist's impact batting style sits easily with Botham's, but to match Botham's imposing record of Test hundreds (14 in 102 matches, and 22 fifties), the young Australian (12 Tests, one hundred, six fifties) will need to be given a chance batting in the top six.He's classy enough for that, but opportunities may be limited by Australia's bowling dominance, which, should it continue, will stay the selectors' hand in needing to squeeze in a fifth bowler The captaincy factor, too, may be a negative. Personal performance can sometimes falter under the stresses of marshalling a team.In Gilchrist, English fans will be reluctant to see another Botham. What they will see in this summer's Ashes series is a boyish-faced 29-year-old, exuberant yet not into histrionics, a sort of old-fashioned sporting gentleman, but one who wields a bat in such a way he wouldn't have looked out of place on the set of Gladiator..
Arsenal have evidently decided that their seasonal charity should be the Sir Alex Ferguson Benevolent Fund. More points were hurled away with the abandon of party streamers as they relinquished a seemingly certain victory after starting this contest retaining the strutting arrogance of the side that humbled Leicester It does really look as though it's all over by the new year. Arsenal have evidently decided that their seasonal charity should be the Sir Alex Ferguson Benevolent Fund. More points were hurled away with the abandon of party streamers as they relinquished a seemingly certain victory after starting this contest retaining the strutting arrogance of the side that humbled Leicester. It does really look as though it's all over by the new year. Many of us contemptuously dismissed such a suggestion when it was first made - back in October, wasn't it? - that the destination of the championship was already decreed. But that can be the only conclusion now after Arsenal failed to profit from the act of generosity made to them by Bobby Robson's Newcastle, who obligingly held the champions at St James' Park.As if that was not sufficient to distress Arsÿne Wenger, he was also confronted with the spectacle of leading scorer Thierry Henry sustaining an ankle injury in the 80th minute and pulling up lame.
The Frenchman, scorer of a hat-trick against Leicester, was substituted by the Lithuanian Tomas Danilevicius, and looks unlikely to contribute to Arsenal's immediate future.In many ways, the fortunes of Patrick Vieira thoughout the match reflected Arsenal's afternoon. There is something about the French international and Sunderland. It was Vieira who was dismissed in the Gunners' 1-0 defeat by the Wearsiders in their first game of the season, a fixture that remains a source of chagrin for his manager, who was involved in a post-match tunnel incident that resulted in him receiving a 12-match FA ban, against which he is appealing. Within five minutes Vieira had scored a goal that would have had Wenger's opposite number, Peter Reid, raging.