England and the West Indies will contest the new Richards-Botham Trophy when they next meet in a Test series, the England and Wales Cricket Board announced on Thursday.
The trophy has been named in honour of West Indies batting great Vivian Richards and celebrated England all-rounder Ian Botham, who were teammates at English county Somerset before becoming opponents on the world stage. The Wisden Trophy will be ‘retired’.
“This is a huge honour for my good friend Ian and myself,” said Richards, who scored more than 8,500 runs during a 121-Test career.“We were competitors on the field, but we showed we were brothers off the field.”
Botham, who scored more than 5,000 runs and took 383 wickets in 102 Tests, said: “Viv was the finest batsman I ever played against. He’s a great friend, but we’ve always been competitive, and there was no one else's wicket I would treasure more.”
