by Arunabha Sengupta
9 August 1991. Second day of the Oval Test.
Ian Botham was back in the side after two years after a serious back operation and several pounds of excess weight. He batted more than two hours before Curtly Ambrose hurled down the bouncer.
The legend hooked instinctively, but the ball was too quick. It struck him somewhere in his body. There followed a rather ungainly pirouette by the visibly overweight all-rounder, loss of balance, body heading for the wicket. As he tried to step over the stumps, his right thigh flicked the bail.
Hit wicket for 31.
On Test Match Special, it was Christopher Martin-Jenkins who described the dramatic if clumsy piece of action.
As Johathan Agnew, four months into Test Match Special, left the commentary box for a cup of tea, John Etheridge of The Sun said playfully, “I know what our headline will be. Ian Botham cocks it up by not getting his leg over!”
Botham, his image, Sun, and the innuendo … together they made a lot of sense. Aggers returned to the box chuckling.
At 6:30, with West Indies 90 for one in response to 419, bad light stopped play. TMS producer Peter Baxter pulled out of his chair, ushered Agnew beside Brian Johnston, and placed a piece of paper in front of them. ‘FILL’ it said. TMS-speak for ‘Keep talking for as long as you possibly can.’
Soon it would prove impossible to talk any more.
In his summing up, Johnston started describing the Botham dismissal, “He tried to do the splits over it, unfortunately the inner part of the thigh must have removed the bail.”
To which Agnew responded with the disastrous, “Yes, he just didn’t quite get his leg over.”
Unintentional, spontaneous…. But, the impact was devastating.
Johnston turned towards Agnew with a look of absolute horror on a face flushed bright red.
He tried desperately to continue the summary: “Anyway he did very well indeed batting 131 minutes and hit three fours,” brave attempt but he was already turning away from Agnew, suppressing a desperate attack of giggles by burying his nose into the scorecard provided by Bill Frindall.
Behind them Frindall had just raised his cup to his lips and hearing Agnew’s remark the cup had come crashing down on the saucer.
“And then we had Lewis playing extremely well for his 47 not out …” by now Agnew was looking straight ahead, avoiding eye contact, but his giggles could be heard even as he tried to hush them up.
“Aggers do stop it,” Johnston said firmly. But by now Frindall had started to snort.
“He was joined by DeFreitas,”Johnners soldiered on. “who was in for forty minutes, a useful little partnership there. Lawrence always entertaining batted for ..”
And now Frindall’s snort broke the dam. Johnston continued amidst helpless chuckles “… 35 minutes, hit a four over the wicketkeeper’s …” and now there was almost a static-like stream of laughter followed by: “Aggers, for goodness sake, stop it.” … forty five seconds of prolonged giggles
Without headphones all Peter Baxter was hearing was silence. He rushed back to the box, hissing through clenched teeth, “Will someone say something!”
Agnew tried to help. “Yes Lawrence, who I’ve … (inaudible) extremely well …” that was as far as he got before he broke down.
Johnston parried “… hit a four over the wicketkeepers head and was out for 9 … “by now sniffs were audible. Forty five minutes of prolonged giggles
And then Johnners recovered “And Tufnell came in and batted for 12 minutes, then he was caught by Haynes off Patterson for 2. There were 54 extras, and England were all out for 419. I’ve stopped laughing now.”
Control had been finally restored, but Peter Baxter was fuming.
While Agnew thought he had successfully ruined his career just a few months into the job, the 79-year-old Johnston was embarrassed by the niggling thought that he had been unprofessional.
However, the next day the mail flooded in.
There were stories of traffic coming to a standstill with drivers in hysterics, men caught up on ladders, hanging on for dear life as they roared with laughter.
Radio 4 newsreader Brian Perkins had been seen leaning heavily against the studio wall, clutching his sides, with tears streaming down his cheeks as his copy was being made.
There was a deluge of requests for dubbed cassettes.
TMS had never been this popular.
Baxter gleefully announced that comedian Ronnie Corbett had been in touch, describing how his wife, who was driving at that time, had been forced to pull onto the hard shoulder until she had recovered.
Radio 4’s Pick of the Week was inundated with requests for Leg Over to be played again. There was even a suggestion of it being nominated for a Sony Award.
The period of laughter had been a major triumph.
On 5 January 1994, two and a half years after this incident, Brian Johnston passed away. BBC Nine O’Clock News carried out his obituary on the same day. It ended with the words, “I’ve stopped laughing now.”