The feud between Ian Chappell and Ian Botham is one that’s spanned five decades, covering commentary boxes and car parks with seemingly little hope of reconciliation. Richard H Thomas examines an Anglo-Aussie rivalry between two big beasts of the game who perhaps have more in common than they’d care to admit.
It’s an Ashes year, and a delicious menu of tussles awaits. Can Mitchell Johnson annihilate England’s middle order on softer, slower pitches? Post ‘Big Cheese’-gate, will Anderson and Broad tame the larrikin Davey Warner and halt Steve Smith’s purple patch?
Alongside these clashes will be the continuation of the most enduring and bitter of Ashes feuds. Perhaps it’s one we would sooner go away, but it seems the animosity between Sir Ian Botham and Ian Chappell still has plenty left in the tank.
With a first name and an unwillingness to take a backward step in common, time has not diminished the unpleasantness. On paper, they should be at least a little friendlier. “The two Ians will know deep down that they are more alike than they let on,” writes Kevin Mitchell of the Guardian. Each has had successful media careers after triumphant playing days characterised by strong, no-nonsense opinions. Neither “minces their words”, says Martin Williamson; or, in other words, “they’ll both call a spade ‘a ******* shovel’.”
Jocularity aside, perhaps it has all become rather unsightly. After all, both men are now grandfathers. Of late there have been hopes of more benevolence between opponents but perhaps those hopes are in vain when senior Ashes protagonists maintain such a public and pathological dislike for each other.
Of course, the hand of friendship from either direction might be as welcome as impetigo, but if nothing else they are patriots, pundits and opponents – is being pals really out of the question? It might be appropriate if the malevolence ended where it started – in the pub. “After all,” Kevin Mitchell reminds us, “they both like a drink”.
First published in March 2015.
