“Ian Chappell not even the best player in his family,” Usman Khawaja takes a swipe at former Australian captain
Ian Chappell had called Khawaja a "good player against mediocre bowling"
Usman Khawaja has taken a swipe at the former Australian captain Ian Chappell by calling him “not even the best player in his family”. Chappell had raised question marks over Khawaja’s credentials as a quality test match batsman a day ago.
Ian Chappell is not quite in the favor of having Usman Khawaja back into the Australian test team, despite the fact that the left-hander has scored a couple of hundreds in first-class cricket only recently.
Khawaja was left out of the Australian test team on the tour of England a couple of years back, and he remains sidelined ever since. However, with Australia’s struggles in test match cricket, particularly with the middle order batting, Khawaja’s name is doing the rounds again for a possible middle order slot as the Ashes comes close.
But, Chappell doesn’t really back Khawaja against high-class bowling attacks. According to Chappell, Khawaja might score runs when the bowlers are not of very high quality, but he is not really a great option against well-rounded attacks.
“Khawaja’s a good player against mediocre bowling, but against good bowling, I don’t think there’s much future there,” Ian Chappell was quoted as saying by Wide World of Sports (wwos).
Usman Khawaja calls Greg Chappell a better player than Ian Chappell
When Khawaja was asked about Ian Chappell’s remarks, he cracked a joke saying Ian Chappell is not the best Chappell who played cricket for Australia and if he needs any sort of guidance from a Chappell, he would probably go to Greg rather than Ian.
“Chappelli’s not even the best player in his family. If I’m going to take advice I might take it from his younger brother,” Khawaja responded.
Stats suggest that Khawaja is not quite wrong when it comes to the comparison between the two Chappell brothers, as Greg Chappell’s test match average is 53 as compared to Ian’s average of 42, which is quite a big difference.
But, if Khawaja has to prove Ian Chappell wrong, he will have to ensure he scores some big hundreds if he gets a nod for the Ashes.
