The 12th edition of the Tiger Pataudi Memorial Lecture 2026 took place on May 19 at GD Birla Sabhaghar. While the lecture was on cricket, there was a lot more that went down in the evening for the cricketer and the audience present.

Lord Ian Botham (popularly called Beefy) talked about his career, but put emphasis on, “If there is no Test cricket, there is no cricket at all.”

His favourite city in India is Nagpur, he said, because, “I spent three days with the elephants there. My wife and I rode and stayed with the elephants, and they are such majestic creatures. I would always like to come back to India just for the elephants.”

This the audience loved, with a row of heads nodding in agreement, the elephant in the room had been addressed.

Every joke, every cheeky remark by Botham was appreciated by the audience.

While talking about Shane Warne and his untimely death, Botham narrated how Warne had been at the bar all night before a day of golf. “He had won the match, created history in it, yet remembered nothing of it,” added Botham.

The audience clapped when Sunil Gavaskar was mentioned, as they did for Sir Viv Richards. The audience also relived every cricketing achievement of Botham when they were being read out, including his stepping down as captain mid-series in the 1982 Ashes.

An audience member, post lecture, expressed how Botham was his childhood hero. “Seeing your hero talk about social work and getting out there to experience real life is a pleasure I will cherish for a long time,” said Sujal Ghoshal, 58.

Botham patiently sat throughout the felicitation, and had a great laugh at being handed a sketch and his writings for The Telegraph.