IMRAN Khan made a dramatic climbdown in court yesterday when he withdrew his defence that his allegations of ball tampering against Ian Botham were justified and offered the Englishman a public apology.
The exPakistani cricket skipper filed the claim before the High Court trial in London began, nine days ago, based on video footage which, he said, showed Botham carrying on the illegal practice during the 1982 Tests against India and Pakistan.
He told Mr Justice French and the jury yesterday that, despite evidence that it was almost impossible to push a misshapen ball back into shape, he accepted Botham's evidence that he was doing just that on footage from the India match.
"I have no reason to doubt Ian when he says he was repairing the ball. "I am prepared to go along with that. If he says he was squeezing the ball, then fine, he was squeezing the ball."
He said there was a difference between the 95 per cent of ball tampering that was within the limits" and the five per cent that was not.
Asked by his QC, Mr George Carman, about incidents during the Pakistan Test when, according to Botham, his reason for throwing the ball back to the wicket keeper, Bob Taylor, was for him to dry it with his gloves, Imran said he had never heard of this practice before.
"Everyone immediately uses the trousers, which is a much more simple thing than throwing it to the keeper who has rubber in his gloves," he said. "But having heard Ian Botham and Bob Taylor, if they say that is what happened, I will accept that they were drying the ball."
Mr Carman: "Does it follow that you want to withdraw your plea of justification?"
Imran: "Yes, sir, I will with draw it."
Mr Charles Gray QC, for Botham and Lamb, asked Imran if it was correct that he was abandoning his plea of justification "on the ninth day of this very public trial".
"Yes, sir."
The allegations of cheating had received the widest publicity and yet were only now being withdrawn, Mr Gray said.
Imran replied: "At no stage have I ever called Mr Botham a cheat. It is technical ball tampering. I have never regarded it as cheating."
Mr Gray: "You accused him of illegal interference with the ball by using his thumbnails to pick the seam or scratch it, and by throwing the ball to the wicketkeeper so he could scuff one side of it to remove the lacquer."
Imran: "Mr Botham admitted to two cases of ball tampering."
Mr Gray said that, as a result of the plea of justification being put on record, a "stream of witnesses had to be called to deal with the incidents.
Imran: "Yes, it is because of their evidence that I dropped it. I have no reason to call them liars."
Mr Gray: "Are you prepared to apologise for the fact that this accusation was made publicly and persisted in for nine days of this trial?"
Imran replied: "Yes, I will apologise if Mr Botham says he was squeezing the ball."
Botham and Lamb are suing Imran over an "offensive personal attack" on them in India Today magazine, which they say called them racist, uneducated and lacking class and upbringing. Botham alone is suing over a May 1994 report in the Sun, which, he says, accused him of ball tampering.