Greg Chappell has launched a stinging critique of the Ashes’ recent batting collapses, arguing that modern Test innings are being surrendered too easily and that the sport is flirting with an identity crisis at its highest level.
Writing in a coloumn on ESPNcricinfo, the former Australia captain framed the issue as a failure of intent and technique rather than a simple case of bowlers being unplayable.
Chappell’s warning on the ‘natural game’
“Two Tests in the series have failed to reach day three, not due to superior skill but a glaring absence of desire. Batters slashed wildly, abandoning technique for bravado, as if playing their ‘natural game’ excused capitulation,” Greg Chappell wrote.
The criticism wasn’t limited to a single innings or a single team. Chappell’s point was broader: when batting becomes a rush to impose, the craft that makes Test cricket distinct – judgement, patience, and the willingness to suffer- gets pushed aside. In a series as historically loaded as the Ashes, he suggested, that shift carries a cost beyond the scoreboard.
“They let down predecessors who bled for this rivalry; they shortchanged fans who braved the holiday heat; they betrayed their own generation by forsaking cricket’s core tenets – playing each ball on merit, scrapping for every run, enduring bruises for the greater good,” he added.
Chappell also connected the trend to the influence of white-ball cricket, where power and instant impact are rewarded more consistently than time spent absorbing pressure. That reality, he acknowledged, has changed player instincts and the marketplace around the game. But he argued that claiming to value Test cricket must come with a willingness to do the hard, unglamorous work that keeps innings alive and contests meaningful.
“I get that white-ball cricket has changed the game, and power is valued more in the marketplace today than the ability to absorb pressure, but if the modern player does value Test cricket, as they say, then they must show it by being able to bat collectively for a minimum of 100 overs in any conditions. If they can’t, or won’t, do that, then the format is doomed,” he wrote.
His benchmark is a direct challenge to dressing rooms raised in an era of relentless scoring. It is also a reminder that Test cricket’s appeal is built on resistance as much as dominance: sessions that must be earned, runs that must be fought for, and momentum that can only be sustained through discipline.
