After admitting in the Mail on Sunday to having smoked cannabis, Ian Botham was banned for 63 days by the TCCB in May 1986 — and came back at The Oval in August to take a wicket with his first ball and pass Dennis Lillee's world Test wicket record.
Botham was a tabloid favourite throughout the early 1980s and had been the subject of lurid drug allegations after the 1984 NZ tour.
His Mail on Sunday confession in May 1986 forced the TCCB into the longest discipline-related suspension in English cricket history at the time.
In May 1986 Botham confessed in the Mail on Sunday — the same paper which had alleged drug-taking on the 1984 New Zealand tour — that he had smoked cannabis. The TCCB suspended him for 63 days, the longest discipline-related suspension in English cricket at the time. He was therefore not selected for the early summer Tests against India. When he returned for the Oval Test against New Zealand in August, he took a wicket with his first ball back (Bruce Edgar caught Edmonds), and then dismissed Jeff Crowe later in the same spell to pass Dennis Lillee's then-world record of 355 Test wickets. Graham Gooch turned to him at slip and said the now-immortal line: 'Who writes your scripts?' Botham finished his career with 383 Test wickets, holding the world record until Hadlee passed him in 1988. The episode encapsulated Botham's career: a tabloid-baiting persona, a self-inflicted ban, and a piece of dramatic on-field brilliance the moment he returned.
Mail on Sunday confession May 1986
TCCB 63-day ban
Comeback Test, The Oval, August 1986
Wicket with first ball back
Passes Lillee's 355-wicket world record
May 1986
Confession; 63-day ban
Summer 1986
Misses early Tests
August 21, 1986
Comeback wicket first ball
Same spell
World record 356th wicket
“Who writes your scripts?”
“I came back and bowled a couple of overs. The script took care of itself.”
He held the Test wicket record until Hadlee passed him in November 1988.
A scriptwriter's comeback — wicket with the first ball back, world record minutes later.
The 'Who writes your scripts?' moment is one of the most-quoted lines in cricket commentary; the episode itself is the case study of Botham's tabloid era.
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