What's your beef?

Botham has a point on England schedule but not the one he thinks he's making

- Emma John

It was a shock to hear, this week, that Ian Botham had launched a new podcast. But only because I had assumed he already had one.

It seemed impossible that the life peer was the last purveyor of strong opinions to have no permanent platform on Acast. Perhaps he has simply been too content to vent: after all, Brexit is a triumph and cricket is racism-free.

But perhaps he was cannily waiting for the dadcasting trend to peak and usher in the age of the granddadcast. This new venture with his old Question of Sport buddy Bill Beaumont will, undoubtedly, appeal to a certain demographic (myself included) who grew up watching the pair josh with each other.

In that sense, the show practically commissions itself, even if the title - Old Boys, New Balls! - seems rather anonymous (and, since the ICEC report, we all know how Botham feels about anonymity). Was "The Rest is Balls" already taken? Or maybe dub it "Lord Botham and Sir Bill" to entice Radio 4 listeners hoping for a previously undiscovered medieval epic.

In the first episode, the knighted pair jousted comfortably over topics such as the Women's Rugby World Cup and the Ashes touring schedule. Botham expressed his concern that England's only competitive warm-up match in Australia will be against their own A side, and that fixtures with state sides are no longer played. "They are saying we play too much cricket. I don't think you play enough."