The Telegraph<\/a> that he was, in fact, asleep in his cabin while the incident unfolded.<\/p>\n\u2018We did go fishing, and Ian Botham did fall in the water,\u2019 Hughes said. \u2018But did I have anything to do with dragging him out? Not quite. I was asleep in my cabin. I found out about two hours later.\u2019<\/p>\n
Hughes, who hailed Beefy as a great mate and competitor, had travelled to the Northern Territory for a charity lunch in Darwin with Botham.<\/p>\n
The pair decided to go on a fishing trip.<\/p>\n
![\"'Beefy'](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/91826951-15008099-_Beefy_was_pulled_out_of_the_water_while_quite_a_few_of_the_dead-a-5_1755431306850.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
‘Beefy’ was pulled out of the water while ‘quite a few’ of the deadly reptiles looked on – and he was left with severe bruising afterwards (pictured)<\/p>\n
![\"Hughes](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/101296803-15008099-image-a-4_1755431264765.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Hughes revealed that members of the fishing crew had dragged Botham (third from left) out of the water\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018On the second day, Beefy turned to me and said: \u201cYou don\u2019t see many crocs here.\u201d I said: \u201cMate, it\u2019s not the crocs you see that are the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018When I got up early to admire the sunrise, I saw a 4\u00bd-metre crocodile 10 metres away, just sitting there. What people don\u2019t realise is the tides \u2013 it\u2019s a nine-metre tide. If you go off the back of the boat, you\u2019re going to get swept away.<\/p>\n
\u2018The moment Beefy went in, a couple of guys grabbed hold of his shirt so that he didn\u2019t lose contact. That\u2019s the true story. But if you want me to tell the fictitious one, I\u2019m happy to go with that, too.<\/p>\n
\u2018The one where I dived in the water and dragged him out of the croc\u2019s grasp,\u2019 he joked.<\/p>\n
Hughes revealed that it was his friend Justin Jones, the boat\u2019s chef and the chief of the Northern Territory\u2019s chamber of commerce, Greg Ireland, who all helped Botham to safety.<\/p>\n
Hughes then revealed that one of his sons had asked him if he had really saved Botham, to which he replied: \u2018I wouldn\u2019t dive in. You don\u2019t even dip your toe in the water up there.\u2019<\/p>\n
During his playing career, Hughes would go on to play in 53 Tests for Australia, returning 212 wickets and over 1,000 runs.<\/p>\n
He now stars in a popular Aussie TV show, Merv Hughes Fishing.<\/p>\n
\u2018The guys were brilliant, it was just one of those accidents,’ Botham said at the time.<\/p>\n
\u2018It was all very quick and I\u2019m OK now.\u2019<\/p>\n
It is estimated that between 100,000 and 200,000 adult crocodiles reside in Australia, with the Northern Territory boasting the largest population.<\/p>\n
The Northern Territory Government has set up active croc management programmes to help reduce the likelihood of fatal attacks.<\/p>\n
On average, one to two deaths due to crocodiles take place in Australia each year.<\/p>\n
Forty-four people have died in Australia since croc protection measures were first implemented in Western Australia back in 1969.<\/p>\n
Saltwater crocs can live up to 70 years and grow to around 5m in length.<\/p>\n
They possess around 68 large teeth and can exert two tonnes of pressure with one bite.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian cricket legend Merv Hughes has opened up on how Sir Ian Botham was saved after falling into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[13285,64,63,740,100,1208,588,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-75969","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-ashes","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-cricket","12":"tag-dailymail","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-sport","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Merv](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/101296807-15008099-image-a-2_1755431167547.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Hughes](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/101296805-15008099-image-a-1_1755431160446.jpg\")
<\/p>\n