Merv Hughes interview: I should be knighted for ‘dragging' Botham out of crocodile-infested waters

Telegraph

15 hours ago

Merv Hughes has spent nine months relishing his reimagining as a 21st-century Crocodile Dundee, plucking a stricken Lord Botham from the jaws of an apex predator 15 feet long. Their escapades last November on the Moyle River passed instantly into folklore, with the great larrikin of Australian cricket reportedly shelving any thought of self-preservation to ensure that England's beloved Beefy – who published photographs of bruises sustained in his fall from their fishing boat – did not end his days as the local crocodiles' lunch. 'I should be knighted,' he says with a laugh, that famous moustache twitching with delight. 'I can't believe King Charles didn't give me a call.'
There was just one problem: Hughes, far from diving heroically into the murky, treacherous waters, was blissfully unaware his friend had even taken a tumble. Deciding it is finally time to come clean, he says: 'We did go fishing, and Ian Botham did fall in the water. But did I have anything to do with dragging him out? Not quite. I was asleep in my cabin. I found out about two hours later.'
Hughes and Botham are hewn from the same stock, having both become Ashes icons through a combination of playing hard and celebrating harder. If Botham is immortalised in the mind's eye through that picture of him dragging on a dressing-room cigar after hitting 145 not out, en route to the timeless 1981 triumph at Headingley, then Hughes is best captured by an image marking Australia's 1993 series win by necking a bottle of Veuve Clicquot at the same ground. 'He's great company, Beefy,' says the incorrigible Merv. 'He loves a lot of things I love doing – loves his fishing, loves his drinking, loves his eating.'
Tales of Hughes's ox-like constitution are legion: he could put away so much ale in his pomp that the Bay 13 brewery, named after the Melbourne Cricket Ground's rowdiest section, has launched a 'Merv' pilsner in his honour. As for food, the scale of his late-night room service orders, involving steak sandwiches galore and milkshakes in every flavour, could shock even his room-mate Shane Warne. When he failed to make the cut for the 1997 tour of England, he joked that it was the right one to miss given that the Australians were no longer backed by the XXXX brewery. 'Got to honour the sponsors,' he grins. 'We also had the McDonald's Cup in those days, where we were given Big Mac vouchers.'
It feels somewhat against the grain, then, that when we meet on a breezy day in Melbourne's Docklands, still deep in the southern-hemisphere winter, he opts for nothing more fortifying than a latte. At 63, he is all that you would hope for in the flesh, with his luxuriant whiskers and well-upholstered physique arguably more redolent of a bush ranger than a fast bowler. He made an indelible impact, though, with England fans' mocking chants of 'Sumo' contradicted by his 212 Test wickets and by the verdict of the late, great Bob Simpson, Australia's former coach, that he was 'one of the most underrated bowlers in the history of the game'.
There is so much to discuss, from the England players he ranks as his toughest opponents to his views on the Bazballers' new stated commitment to sledging, an art in which he can claim to be especially well-versed. Beyond all this, though, we need to establish the real chronology of his Boy's Own adventure last year with Botham in the Northern Territory. After all, his reputation for machismo is at stake here, with Botham himself hailing him as integral to the rescue act: 'Merv asked, 'Have I done the right thing?' Or words to that effect.'
'We had gone up for a charity lunch in Darwin,' Hughes reflects. 'We had a fish, and on the second day Beefy turned to me and said, 'You don't see many crocs here.' I said, 'Mate, it's not the crocs you see that are the problem.' When I got up early to admire the sunrise, I saw a 4½-metre crocodile 10 metres away, just sitting there. What people don't realise are the tides – it's a nine-metre tide. If you go off the back of the boat, you're going to get swept away. The moment Beefy went in, a couple of guys grabbed hold of his shirt so that he didn't lose contact. That's the true story. But if you want me to tell the fictitious one, I'm happy to go with that, too. The one where I dived in the water and dragged him out of the croc's grasp.'
Well, it did seem a persuasive image. Although not, perhaps, if you knew the first thing about crocodiles. 'One of my sons rang me up and asked, 'Dad, did you really dive in and save him?' And I told him, 'If my eldest child went in that river, I wouldn't dive in.' You don't even dip your toe in the water up there.'
Ultimately, it was the three crew members who were awake – Justin Jones, Hughes's friend and an avid fisherman, Greg Ireland, chief executive of the Northern Territory's chamber of commerce, plus the on-board chef – who took credit for hauling Botham to safety. Not that the man himself let his battered torso and wounded pride detract from the object of the trip. A few hours later, he caught a 3ft barramundi. 'He knows what he's doing, I'll give him that,' Hughes says. 'I thought he'd just be a fly fisherman, catching trout. Some people get intimidated by big fish, but he just does it easily. I was thinking, 'I wish I was that calm.''
It might be the warmest compliment to an Englishman that has ever passed Hughes's lips. For in Ashes mode he became a terror, a cartoon savage, with his curiously pitter-patter run-up – 'mincing', one observer called it – disguising an extreme malevolence of intent. It was just not his deliveries that could unsettle, with his 1993 yorker to demolish Mike Gatting's stumps a particular highlight, but also the four-letter oaths he would throw in afterwards.
'I was pretty basic,' he admits. 'That's where Mike Atherton was too good for me. He walked past me once and said something, and I had to ask Ian Healy, 'What was that?' 'Oh, he meant that you look like a chimpanzee,' Heals said. 'Why didn't he just say it, then?' 'I think he's educated, mate.' It's interesting, the way people go about it. There was nothing subtle about what I did on a cricket ground.'
By any standards, it was a fascinating duel: Atherton, the Cambridge Blue, versus Hughes, whose formal schooling ended at 16 and who, pre-stardom, kept himself fed and watered working in a Melbourne toy shop. In 1989, he targeted the 21-year-old Atherton deliberately because he was young – 'I'll bowl you a piano, see if you can play that' was one favourite barb – and was impressed by the stoicism of the response. 'I went hard at him, to see what he was made of. And he was pretty b----- good. It was just water off a duck's back, it didn't faze him.'
The same could hardly be said of Graeme Hick, whom Hughes tormented so relentlessly throughout the '93 Ashes that umpire Dickie Bird intervened, saying: 'Don't talk to Mr Hick like that. What has he done to you?' Apparently, he had been fond of taunting his prey: 'Turn the bat over, the instructions are on the other side.' While the Ashes brought out his most devilish instincts, his finest moment of spontaneity came against Pakistan in 1991, when Javed Miandad had the temerity to deride him as a 'fat bus conductor'. Taking his wicket a couple of balls later, Hughes, suitably piqued, revelled in calling after him: 'Tickets, please.'
It is his virtuoso abilities at what Australians call a 'bit of chirp' that make him well-placed to judge England's efforts at amplifying their nasty streak. With Harry Brook, Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett all far more belligerent in confronting India this summer, the pre-Ashes tensions are coming to the boil beautifully. Except Hughes believes it is all a little too premeditated.
'If you've got to practise it, you've lost,' he says. 'If it doesn't come naturally to you and you have to add it to your game, you're better off not doing it. I grew up with it. At 14, 15, I was copping it. The big thing you learn is that you have to be in control. The best sledge you can give an opposing batsman is one that totally humiliates him and makes your team-mates laugh.'
With many predictions suggesting the closest series in years, would Hughes like to see a more even series? 'Nah,' he replies. 'I really enjoy the blow-outs.' With scorelines Down Under of 5-0, 4-0, 4-0 since 2011, he has had plenty of sadistic pleasure at the Poms' expense. The difference was that the extraordinary team to which he belonged, under Allan Border's captaincy, achieved the same dominance on English soil, securing big wins on both his Ashes tours.
'I had gone over to England on an Esso scholarship in 1983, spending time in Essex, and I progressed five years in six months,' he reflects. 'Heading off on the '89 tour, we had been written off as the worst Australian team of all time. But we had confidence among ourselves. Plus, there was real combat for spots on the team. I was looking over my shoulder at guys like Michael Slater, Shane Warne, Paul Reiffel, Damien Martyn, thinking, 'I don't want to put in a bad performance here.'' Their supremacy set the tone: when they wrested the urn back from England in '89, they would not relinquish it for 16 years.
It was Hughes's antics on tour that would define him. With the demeanour of a villain in a silent movie, he was fodder for England supporters whenever he ventured near the boundary rope, not least when he began chasing a stray dog on the Trent Bridge outfield. And yet the casting was one he loved. 'I can't for the life of me understand how opposing players get disturbed by the crowd. If the crowd bait you in England, you think, 'Well, at least they know who I am.' Mitchell Johnson said it was really intimidating. But mate, it's only intimidating if you allow it to be. It was the same for Botham at the MCG – they knew who he was. It's a feather in your cap.'
Sometimes, Hughes's distinctions as a cricketer can be forgotten. In 1988, he took the most wickets ever for Australia in a losing cause, with his 13 for 207 against the West Indies in brutal Perth heat. That featured the most convoluted hat-trick of all, spread across three overs and two innings. Woe betide anyone who argues that it is diminished on that basis. 'People say, 'A batsman can't get 80 in one innings, 20 in another, and be credited with a hundred.' Well, batting's easy, bowling's hard. Make the rules for batsmen and leave the bowlers alone.'
He blazed relatively briefly as a player, retreating to the margins after a serious knee injury. But he takes comfort from the fact that he savoured every minute. 'Paul Hibbert used to say to me, 'Treat every game like it's your last, because it could well be.' When you're 20, it sounds a stupid saying. But then you get to a point where you think, 'How real is that?' It's amazing, the things that hit years later.'
Hibbert, nine years his senior, died at 56 from an internal haemorrhage reported as possibly related to alcoholism. The generation of which Hughes was part has suffered no shortage of tragedy, from Shane Warne to Graham Thorpe. 'Dean Jones, too,' he says, remembering the batsman he once called his 'brother', who died from a stroke in 2020. It is why, although he tires sometimes of being celebrated as a 'character', he is just content that his contribution continues to endure.
'You don't play 10 years of international cricket because you're a character. But I'm happy to run with it – it still gets me work, still gets me recognised. 'Character' is fine. I'm happy to go with whatever anyone wants to call me, to be honest.' And therein lies the essence of Hughes, a sledger extraordinaire but a man with no shortage of soul.