The winner of the next West Indies tour of England will bag home the Richards-Botham Trophy instead of the Wisden Trophy.
Both the England and Wales Cricket Board and the Cricket West Indies both agree to retire the Wisden Trophy after this season. The Wisden Trophy will now be kept at the MCC Museum at Lord’s after it had been used for several years since its introduction in 1963. With that, the winner of their match series will get to take home the new Richards-Botham Trophy which tools its name from former cricketers Sir Vivian Richards and Sir Ian Botham.
Talking about the new trophy, Richards said, ‘This is a huge honour for my good friend Ian and myself. I am delighted to know that the game that I have shown my love for since a little boy is naming such a prestigious award in my recognition of what I managed to achieve as a cricketer. When I had the opportunity to go to England and represent Somerset, one of the first persons I met was Ian Botham, who would later become one of my best friends. We are friends for life’.
‘To have this trophy - West Indies vs England - named in honour of our work on the cricket field is great. What I think is also remarkable is that it says a lot about our relationship off the field as well. We were competitors on the field, but we showed we were brothers off the field. I'm proud to have my name on one side of the trophy with him on the other side’, he added.
Meanwhile, Botham said, ‘Viv was the finest batsman I ever played against. He's a great friend but we've always been competitive, not least when we were on the cricket field, and there was no one else's wicket I would treasure more. Playing the West Indies was always one of the toughest tests in cricket, and it's an honour for this trophy to bear our names. I hope future series will be just as exciting as the one we've all been enjoying this summer’.
Richards is regarded as one of the best batsmen of all time. He has scored a total of 8,540 runs in 121 Tests at an average of 5.23. Meanwhile, Botham has scored more than 5,200 runs and has taken 383 wickets in a span of 102 Tests.
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