Cricket interview: Keith Duggan talks to the great all-rounder about family, friends, career and how England needs the drama and heroics of the current Ashes series as much as in 1981 when he famously inspired victory

Ian Botham has been passing through Farranfore airport in the heart of Kerry for half his life but never before has he been stopped to talk about cricket at the height of All-Ireland season.

"It is extraordinary. I come through that place at all hours and not a word about cricket," he laughs.

"The last day, I see this lad who has been working there for years and he yells: 'Beefy, are we goin' to beat them? Are we going to beat them?' I think that's brilliant. And I say, 'yeah mate, we are'. This Ashes series has really captured the imagination. Everybody is talking about it. I had dinner with Sir Alex Ferguson at Old Trafford last week. And the first thing he said was, 'Beefy, would you bloody believe it, the Premiership starts Sunday and all anybody is talking about is the cricket?'

"And he was delighted with that because it deflected some of the attention away from United. But he said that even at training, the lads from overseas who hadn't a clue about cricket have been captivated by it and are asking questions about it. Everybody is living and breathing cricket again. It is just marvellous."

Not for the first time in his life, Ian "Beefy" Botham is on a roll. The big, popular Englishman has just played a reasonable round of golf at the Ring of Kerry golf club and is in high form as he celebrates with a pint of the black stuff and a bacon-and-brie sandwich. His wife, Kath, is relaxing with friends inside, his son, Liam, and grandchildren are due to arrive later in the evening so father and son can play the Ring of Kerry pro-am tournament. He turns over his left shoulder and offers the famous, crooked Botham grin by way of appreciation of the panoramic view of the west Kerry countryside and extravagant summer skyline.

"It's pretty awesome, isn't it?" he murmurs as though the view is a painting.

"All along this coastline. Any time I get an opportunity to visit, I am here like a scullery cat. Brendan (Breslin, course consultant) is a good friend of mine and this club is something special."

A framed photograph featuring Botham in classical pose - physically imposing but absurdly friendly, dressed in pastels - features prominently on a wall of fame containing the gamut of esteemed visitors, from Terry Wogan to basketball legend and golf junkie Michael Jordan. Celebrities ghost in and out of this club without anyone even knowing but the definitive face of English cricket has come to be regarded as part of the furniture.

Although he is almost comic-book English, Botham instinctively "gets" Ireland. And in this country, Botham has long belonged to that exclusive club of English sportsmen, like Jimmy White or Duncan Edwards or Bobby Moore, whose brilliance and personality override the instinctive antipathy we frequently direct at England's sporting sons. Although fiercely patriotic and of northern rural stock, Botham also transcends nationality and has that genuinely empathetic streak - like Best and Ali - that makes strangers believe they have known him all their lives.

He happily declares this small corner of Ireland one of his favourite patches on the planet and stealing away before the climax of the Ashes series is a treat. That his son can fly in is particularly pleasing but Liam's availability is down to the sad fact of his recent retirement from professional rugby league at the age of 27.

"It was a tough thing to happen," Botham says. "Liam is very level-headed. He has three kids, he is supremely fit and is a supremely honest sportsperson. The doctors said the C3 vertebra in his neck would gradually get weaker and that he could carry on for maybe a year or so but that there was a danger. But he just felt he had too much to risk.

"And he rears pheasants for a lot of the shoots in the north of England. It started off as a cottage industry but it has just taken off. He is going to have orders for up to 80,000 birds next year. So he was going to have to think seriously about his future in rugby anyway because this has turned into a serious industry. And his attitude is that maybe there is a message in that it has been taken out of his hands. And I admired that. I mean how many kids playing professional sport at 27 have already started thinking about their future? It is sad because he was tipped to represent Great Britain within the next year. But I think he has had a great career, playing three professional sports.

"My own feeling is he would have been a great cricketer but he would never have been given a chance. On his debut for Hampshire he took five wickets off Middlesex and so the headlines were, 'Chip off the old Block' and 'Son of Beefy' and la, la, la, la, la. I felt so sorry for him. And one day he just came in and said, 'Dad, I think I'm going to switch to rugby'."

The pride with which Botham speaks of his son is palpable and there is the sense that he regards Liam's ability to establish a separate, sporting identity despite possessing one of the most resonant surnames in English sporting culture as significant as any of his own triumphs.

Over a quarter of a century has passed since Ian Botham burst on the scene as the enfant terrible of the venerated pastime of Housman's England. That he is pushing half a century himself now is a remarkable testament to how slyly time passes. Anybody over 30 must covet at least some memory of this burly, blonde and vaguely punkish figure who seemed like a stubborn streak of colour in Thatcherite England, a vivacious and positive winning force. He was a contrary presence, the saviour of English sport and a cult hero but the bane of the genteel overlords of English cricket.

"The gin-sodden dodderers, as I used to call them," Botham laughs.

He had 15 colourful - and blessedly injury-free years - at the top of cricket but nothing compared to the glory he touched in 1981. Discontent and nostalgia were rife in England during that long, hot summer. Even as Charles and Diana vivified Royalism, kids were rioting in Liverpool and Bristol and prisoners were starving themselves to death in a Northern jail. Famous soccer stadiums had been reduced to crumbling rallying points for fascists and the Iron Lady was deconstructing the fundamental pillars of working-class Britain.

But the performance of Botham in the Ashes against Australia was like a bold and sweeping statement that the traditional spirit of England still existed. It was the stuff of classic English pluck in the face of impending disaster. England trailed by two Tests and were languishing horribly in the third when Botham, at war with the selectors and heavily criticised for his own form, just exploded. Famously, Ladbrokes had just posted odds of 500-1 when he went ballistic at the wicket in Headingley, retiring after shocking the Australians with a score of 145 not out.

That batting display rescued the third Test for England. At Edgbaston, three slumbering days passed before he again took a miraculous grip on the series, conceding just one run in 28 balls and bowling five wickets. By the deciding Test in Old Trafford, the mood was of a coronation and in the second innings, he went for 118 to leave Australia a frightening 500 runs behind. England has not witnessed anything like that all-round performance since.

He does not downplay the significance of those weeks now but neither is he one for mythologising his past, preferring to reminisce about the sheer fun that series was. Even after relinquishing the captaincy - selector Alec Bedser announced afterwards he would have been stripped of it anyway - and struggling to match his animated public persona - Botham did it his way. For instance, he threw a party after the disastrous second Test.

"It was a tradition. The Aussie team bus would pull up outside our house in Lincolnshire and the lads would walk down the drive with a few slabs of Four-X. We would cater or barbecue and we had all day Sunday to sleep it off. There was one night when the two teams ended up scrumming down at about three in the morning in the marquee. Then, on Monday, it would be on to Lord's or wherever and back to business."

Great days, but Botham does not pine for them. "My time is gone. I always tell the kids if I ever use the expression, 'in my day', take me down the field and shoot me."

But he does accept that there are obvious parallels between the current Ashes and that gilded series of 1981, most conspicuously in the dynamic shape of Freddie Flintoff, who possesses the same chunky athleticism and bright charisma as the 1980s man. Botham throws his eyes to heaven when the new sensation is mentioned.

"People will make comparisons but look, I had my time and it is over. Freddie is in and he will stamp his own mark on the game. Freddie is a great mate of mine. He stayed with us in Spain when he was recovering from his operation and you know, we laughed about it over a bottle of wine. He says, 'I'm the next Beefy, you know'. We laugh. But it is nice that people are talking about it and making those comparisons. I suppose it is an honour."

What he will contend is that, as a nation, England needs the drama and heroics of this series as deeply as the country did in 1981.

"The place was in a fair old mess then," he acknowledges.

"And now, with the war in Iraq and what those cowards did in London, we need a lift. And I use that word, cowards, strongly. They talk about Muslim rights but when we allow people into this country to preach evil, how can those kids withstand it? One of those kids who was involved in the bombings used to bowl the nets at Leeds. How could he go from there? He was turned by evil minds that for some reason are allowed into England. Why?

"I have so many Muslim friends, great friends, whose way of life is being tainted because a few psychos are permitted to go in and incite hatred. Why tolerate them? Sponging off society, milking the benefits and then preaching this kind of hatred. It makes my blood boil."

It is the only time that Botham's face clouds over and you sense that although he may be uncomfortable about what sounds like a conservative tirade, he is too blunt and honest not to let fly. This, after all, is the man who in 1984 instantly quit Somerset, the club where he signed a professional contract as a prodigious 14-year-old because he believed his friend Viv Richards, the great West Indian cricketer, was being treated unfairly by Peter Roebuck and the club selectors.

Given the colonial slant to England's opponents in cricket, race was never an issue for Botham and he used to quip, in the days before political rectitude, that "Viv was just left in the oven a bit longer than me".

"The great thing about a life in sport is that there is no such thing as creed or race. People are people. In an ideal world, that's how it would be."

And yet Beefy believes in nationhood. His father was in the navy and fought in the second World War. He would talk about his experiences occasionally, most vividly about getting transferred from his regular ship just a few days before it was bombed out in Singapore, causing 1,500 fatalities. His parents excelled at sport and were devoted to the country existence.

"That is where Liam developed his interest in breeding dogs and birds. He just has this deep interest in how nature works. We were ordinary country people and my folks made big sacrifices so I could play sport. They taught me to love the outdoors and even now, I hate cities. Except Dublin, funnily. But I am always harping on to my kids and grandchildren about getting out and playing. Because I worry. I worry England is producing a nation of nerds, stuck in front of a computer all day long."

And Beefy grins because he hears the faint voice of the Old Grump resident deep in his soul, the kind of period groaning that he detested back when he was the countercultural hero of English cricket.

But he is comfortable in his skin, happy with the sportsman's afterlife in a Sky commentary box "where the beauty of it is that I never drop a ball or never play a bad shot". At 50 not out, he is doing fine, still recognisably the craggy, handsome prankster of old and schoolboyishly excited by how Flintoff and England are going to push for greatness over the weekend.

"See, the game moves on," he says again, his abiding theme.

"How would Sir Donald Bradman have done nowadays? We don't know. Bradman was great but he is history. Me? History. It is what happens now that counts. I hope all the records I set go. Because that means England is strong. People compare eras. It would have been nice to seen what the Bodyline series was like but I don't believe there was ever a more hostile attack than the West Indies had in the late 1970s. That was the best side to ever play Test cricket. It is hard enough to compare players from the same decades. To compare guys from different eras is mad. But to be in the debate is nice. What's important now is that we have Australia, the best side in the world, taking on England, the second best. And everyone is breathing cricket again. That's what is great."

And as another pint of plain is plonked down in front of Beefy, the hero of 81 sighs in deep contentment.

He always did make the best of life between the innings.