Libel Trials Revisited - No 7 - Botham and Lamb v Khan

In which ‘Beefy’ and ‘Lamby’ got themselves into a right stew.

Ian Botham was one of the greatest cricketers who ever lived - add him to the list of heroes of this blog.

Imran Khan was a great all-round cricketer.

Alan Lamb was from South Africa.

In 1996 the trial comenced in the libel action in which Botham and Lamb sued Khan for remarks attributed to him in an Indian newspaper ‘India Today’ in 1994. Khan had, in the course of a piece about ball-tampering, allegedly called Botham and Lamb racists and attributed their attitudes to lack of education, class and upbringing.

The particular part of the article said to be libellous was as follows:-

…Imran stated that the “English media and a certain section of cricketers” had been motivated by racism when they kicked up such a storm over the Pakistan bowlers.

“There’s a lot of racism in this society. Look at people like Lamb and Botham saying, ‘I never thought much of him anyway. Now he’s been proved a cheat’,” the Oxford-educated Imran wrote.

He continued: “Look at people who have taken a rational stand on this. Tony Lewis, Christopher Martin-Jenkins, Derek Pringle. They are educated Oxbridge types. Look at the others, Lamb, Botham and Trueman. Class and upbringing makes a difference.”

Khan’s position was that he had been misquoted in the article and was only trying to defend himself after admitting that he once tampered with a ball in a county match 18 years ago.

It seems fairly clear that long before the court proceedings began Khan had offered to publish a fulsome apology explaining that he had been misquoted and accepting that Botham and Lamb were not racist and adding the following for good measure, “I regard both men as true sportsmen, for whom I have the greatest respect. I have never called either of them racists.

“Much has been made of the fact that I said some of the biggest names in cricket have tampered with the ball. During the whole of my career this sort of tampering, within limits, was not considered to be cheating, and I would never accuse either Ian Botham or Allan Lamb or anyone else of cheating”.

This proposed apology was not considered ‘good enough’ by Botham and Lamb and so the libel action carried on to the delight of the lawyers and newspaper editors.

The action, branded by the trial judge as a “complete exercise in futility” was doomed to fail, especially once the defence started raking over Beefy’s ‘colourful’ career, including allegations of drug-taking and liaisons with the likes of Miss Barbados.

The jury decided 10-2 in Khan’s favour, and Botham and Lamb were left to pick up the tab for the costs of the case, estimated at £400,000.

Although that was ten years ago, the matter still reverberates, and there were echoes in the recent ‘ball-tampering’ row which led to the final test between England and Pakistan this summer coming to an unwelcome premature end.

It was reported as recently as 2004 that the costs of the case had still not been settled and perhaps it rumbles on still (see here)

Footnote - in the ‘India Today’ article Khan had allegedly grouped Botham, Lamb AND Freddie Trueman together as ‘lacking class and upbringing’ - Freddie Trueman did not sue.