Botham Voted As Greatest England Cricketer Of The Last 25 Years – 22/09/2005 Ian Botham, England’s legendary all rounder has been acclaimed the greatest England cricketer of the last 25 years by BBC Radio 5 Live listeners and their cricket commentary team. Presented Monday Night The award, sponsored by NatWest, is to be officially presented at the NatWest PCA Awards Dinner 2005, in association with the ECB, at the Royal Albert Hall on Monday 26 September and forms part of the celebrations for NatWest’s 25th year in cricket. Botham Rules Ian Botham won the award with 36% of the 30,000 votes from both BBC Radio 5 Live listeners and BBC Online visitors. Graham Gooch was a close second with 30% of the votes with Andrew Flintoff in third with 24%. The nominees for the Greatest England Cricketer of the Year sponsored by NatWest were: • Ian Botham • Graham Gooch • Andrew Flintoff • David Gower • Alec Stewart • Darren Gough What A Year! Lee Bailey, NatWest Sponsorship Manager, said: ” 2005 marks our 25th anniversary within the game – and what a year to celebrate. The NatWest PCA Awards 2005 is a fantastic climax to what has been an unbelievable year of cricket and how fitting it is to award the ‘Greatest England cricketer of the last 25 years’ to one of the true legends in the game, Ian Botham.”
