Beefy's Call to Arms at the Jaguar Awards

Sir Ian Botham has never been one to fudge an issue in life, whether it's smacking Aussie bowlers for six and then demolishing their stumps, or walking for thousands of miles to raise millions of pounds for leukaemia.

At the Jaguar Acadmey of Sports inaugural awards evening at Lords, where his name graces the famous old board, of course, for five wicket hauls and test centuries, there was no danger of any splinters ending up in Beefy's backside.

Asked if he thought England might fare well down under in the Ashes series which begins in a fortnight's time, his answer was unequivocal. "We're going to stuff 'em," he replied, to cheers and loud applause. There then followed a five minute rant which included all the old favourites - convicts, arrogance, Warney etc - but his argument held firm.

With no Warne or McGrath (or even Lee) to turn to this time, where are Ricky Ponting's match-winners? And with no Hayden, Langer, Gilchrist, who will get the runs? Ponting's still the prize wicket, of course, but is he the force he was? Watson's dangerous, but not a match-winner. Clarke and Hussey are out of form, and they have no world-class spinner in their ranks.

It looks, as Botham pointed out, too good to be true and England may never have a better chance. Botham, being Botham, did not bother with the usual caveats - there's no such thing as a bad Australian team, it's away down under where the competition is intense etc etc. He just went for the Aussie jugular, just as he did throughout his stellar career as a cricketer.

And that's why he remains such a favourite to this day, the English yeoman of the guard, proud as punch and willing to take it to the enemy. Funnily enough the Aussies like him, and Fred Flintoff, almost as much as we do for the very same reasons. If the England team under Andy Flower and Andrew Strauss can pump their chests out in Australia, the battle will already be half won.