Sir Ian Botham's @BeefyBotham Twitter profile picture.
Former English cricketer Sir Ian Botham has seen the funny side of a tweet gone viral, thanking the person who tweeted an explicit picture of a penis from his verified @BeefyBotham account.
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The 58-year-old former all-rounder deleted the offending tweet, which he claimed was not his handiwork, but noticed a sharp increase in followers.
I would like to thank the hacker....I've just got 500 hits in 20mins !! — Ian Botham (@BeefyBotham)
August 18, 2014
The picture - which was accompanied by the words "What are you thinking...xx" - was retweeted more than a thousand times before it was deleted and Ian Botham began trending on the social media site.
I see Ian Botham trending. Worried he's had a heart attack or something. Even worse, I see a picture of his middle stump. — Alternative Cricket (@AltCricket)
August 18, 2014
I know how seriously Cricket fans take their stats, so took the liberty of updating the Top Trump:
pic.twitter.com/i8PjzP1wxD — Ben (@0point5twins)
August 18, 2014
With all the jokes flying around, Botham played ball, retweeting some of the highlights.
@BeefyBotham your length was always much better than that anyway! Lol — Paul (@Paulman86)
August 18, 2014
He also confirmed he had changed his password.