$92,000 offer refused

Press, 13 February 1982, Page 64

$92,000 offer refused

NZPA staff correspondent London The former England cricket captain, lan Botham, and two team-mates had rejected a £40,000 ($NZ92,000) offer to play one month’s cricket in South Africa this year, the “Standard” reported yesterday. However, other England players were still considereing it, the newspaper said. John Thicknesse wrote from Sri Lanka, where England is on tour, that the offer dwarfed what, the Australian Mr Kerry Packer, paid es-

tablished test stars to lure them into world series cricket five years ago. “The players balanced it against their potential test earnings and, mercifully for England’s prospects for retaining the Ashes next (northern) winter, firmly turned it down.” < Thicknesse quoted Botham as telling him there were financial and personal reasons for his decision. The other two who had . rejected the offer did not want to be identified. Other members of Keith Fletcher’s tourists were still

considering the offer, the correspondent said. The matches were proposed at the end of the current England tour of India and Sri Lanka, Thicknesse said. The “Sun” newspaper reported that the England opener. Geoff Boycott, who returned home from the tour because of ill-health, was the man behind a proposed “unofficial test,” planned in South Africa next month