Ashes missed emotions that were in South Africa-India Test series: Ian Chappell

Former Australian captain Ian Chappell was very much surprised with how the Ashes had panned out recently and felt that it missed the fight. Australia recorded a 4-0 victory over England at their home in the five-match Test series and England had run out of answers as this is their sixth loss in the ongoing World Test Championship 2021-22. Over the years, Ashes has been one of the oldest rivalries that have gone down into the wire with players giving their 100 per cent.

It was complete domination from the home side as the new skipper Pat Cummins has now started with a series victory. Chappell also admitted that the recently concluded Test series between India and South Africa had much more enthralling action than expected as both the teams had fought tooth and nail until the last delivery. However, it was the home side that emerged victorious against India.

Ian Chappell feels there was some exquisite batting in the South Africa-India series

Ian Chappell credited the batters for playing some extraordinary innings in tough conditions in South Africa and admitted the Ashes lacked the emotions it should have had. He added that the pitches in South Africa were completely seamer-friendly, but despite that, the home side had shown immense courage in chasing down scores above 200. The Proteas did lose the first Test but staged a stronger comeback in the second and third Test to win the series 2-1.

“Some nine hours away South Africa surprisingly defeated India in an old-fashioned dogfight that included some enthralling cricket. It also involved ample emotion of the sort that has notably been missing from an Ashes contest that has been surprisingly uncontroversial so far. The South Africa series featured bowling domination on pitches that were probably too much in favour of the fielding side, but there was also some exquisite batting.” Chappell wrote on his column for ESPN Cricinfo

Chappell acknowledged the brave efforts from the top run-scorers in the South Africa-India series and was very much impressed with the attacking stroke play of Rishabh Pant and Keegan Petersen. Pant scored a magnificent century while Petersen finished as the man of the series in just the second Test series.

“Because defiant batting wasn’t prevalent, gutsy innings by Dean Elgar, Temba Bavuma, KL Rahul and Virat Kohli stood out. The exhilarating shot-making extravaganzas of Rishabh Pant and Keegan Petersen proved that aggressive batting with scoring in mind could be achieved even on testing surfaces.” he added