Botham's Century by Ian Botham & Peter Hayter

Botham's Century (First Edition with Gift Inscriptions, in Jacket)

Ian Botham's Own Who's Who of the Cricketing Characters He Met, Written with Peter Hayter

Bibliographic Specifications

• Title: Botham's Century: My 100 Great Cricketing Characters
• Authors: Ian Botham & Peter Hayter
• Publisher: CollinsWillow, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, London
• Publication Date: 2001
• ISBN-13: 9780002189569
• ISBN-10: 0002189569
• Edition Details: First Edition, published by CollinsWillow, London, 2001.
• Binding: Publisher's blue cloth hardcover with gilt-lettered spine, stained top edge, in a photographic dust jacket.
• Physical Format: Large octavo hardcover, illustrated with colour photographic plates and line drawings by Ken Taylor.
• Language: English

Official Condition Report

• The Book: Very Good (VG)
• Exterior / Boards: The blue cloth boards are clean and the spine is straight. There is a small bump or crush to the top fore-edge corner of one board. The top edge is stained yellow or gold.
• Interior: The binding is tight and the text pages are clean, with even light toning and no foxing or markings seen. The colour photographic plates are present. Two handwritten gift inscriptions appear on the front endpaper.
• Provenance: Two handwritten gift inscriptions on the endpaper: "Happy 40th, with love always... Ashleigh!" and "Happy 40th Mike, Hope its a b-day to remember and its great to be with you! This is for Cherie to read a good night story in bed! (ha ha) Keep smiling! Love Jo-Anne xx".
• The Dust Jacket: Present: a photographic portrait of Ian Botham on blue with gold title lettering. The spine and back panel look good. It is protected in a durable archival-type plastic cover, which shows some surface scuffing and marks.

Synopsis & Historical Value

Published in 2001, Botham's Century: My 100 Great Cricketing Characters is Ian Botham's own gallery of the people who shaped his career, written with the cricket journalist Peter Hayter. It offers one hundred portraits of players, umpires, coaches and others he met along the way, among them Viv Richards, Brian Close and Shane Warne.

Each portrait mixes anecdote with Botham's frank opinions, and the back cover quotes his remarks on figures such as Dickie Bird and Darren Gough. The book appeared immediately after the 2001 Ashes series. Frank Keating, reviewing it for Cricinfo, found the format far more rewarding than Botham's earlier 1994 memoir.

This is a collectible copy for the cricket enthusiast, with the charm of two warm personal gift inscriptions and a jacket that has been kept protected.

Author Profile: Ian Botham & Peter Hayter

Lord Ian Botham OBE is widely regarded as one of cricket's greatest all-rounders. Over a 15-year England career he scored 5,200 Test runs and took 383 Test wickets, a world record at the time, with 14 Test centuries. He was knighted in 2007 for services to charity and sport and appointed a life peer in 2020. His other books include Seasons, My Sporting Heroes and Botham's Book of the Ashes.

Peter Hayter is the cricket correspondent of the Mail on Sunday. He co-wrote Botham's 1994 autobiography and is also the author of Jack Russell Unleashed (1998) and The Ashes: highlights since 1948 (1995).

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