ASHES legends Sir Ian Botham and Ian Chappell reportedly came close to blows in the Adelaide Oval car park during the second Test.
Botham, 55, is in Australia covering the series for Sky, while Chappell, 67, is working for Australia’s Channel 9.
The pair reignited a feud which stretches back for more than 30 years and only the intervention of television colleagues from both sides stopped the two from fighting as they squared up to one another.
According to an unnamed Channel 9 source, the former Australia captain said something highly provocative to the legendary all-rounder as he waited for a car to collect him at the end of the day’s play.
Botham turned around, asking: “What did you say?”
The source continued: ‘They went for each other all right and it could have got very nasty if there hadn’t been people on hand to keep them apart.
“They reacted quickly because we all know the history between these two. They might be aged 55 and 67, but neither of them is the type of people to give an inch in the face of conflict.”
That was certainly true on the pitch, where Chappell led a successful Australia team in the 1970s, and Botham, who remains England’s highest wicket-taker in Test cricket, was a fearsome competitor.
The bad blood between the pair dates back to an incident during the 1977 Centenary Test in Melbourne, where the then-uncapped Botham found himself in the same bar as Chappell.
In Botham’s version of events the Englishman punched the Australian after taking exception to Pommie-bashing comments, landing him in the middle of a table of Aussie Rules footballers.
Chappell, by contrast, says that Botham had been goading and threatening him about touring England, and had walked out of the bar calmly, chased by a fuming Botham.
Whatever the truth, the pair have never cleared the air – despite sharing the commentary box during the 1998-9 Ashes in Australia. (Eurosport)