Arise, Sir 'liar' - Chappell gets stuck into Botham over bar brawl

The outspoken Chappell launched his outburst in response to claims in the most recent installment of Botham's autobiography Head On that he "flattened" Chappell for rubbishing English cricket after issuing him with "three warnings" for repeated abuse.

Chappell hit back by claiming the book should be renamed "More Cricket Fairytales" and disputed Botham's version of events before the Centenary Test in 1977, when the England legend-to-be was in Australia on a scholarship playing for Melbourne University in Victoria's grade competition.

Accusation: Chappell said Botham threatened him with a glass

"There are many skeletons dangling in Botham's cupboard, ranging from stories of drug-taking to general thuggery, and if he keeps peddling his lies, there's every chance more of these stories will emerge," Chappell wrote in Australia's Bulletin magazine.

"Someone is going to regret awarding him a knighthood. Apart from having us in the same bar, the rest is a fairytale.

"He put an empty beer glass against my face and threatened: 'I'll cut you from ear to ear'.

"I told him that would only confirm that he is a coward. I was leaning back in my chair at the time and when he pushed me in the chest, I fell backwards.

"As I got up, he suggested we settle it outside, to which I replied: 'I don't fight. You either finish up in jail or hospital and I don't intend visiting either over a c*** like you'."

Sir Ian: Botham shows off his knighthood

Botham has always denied threatening Chappell with a beer glass.

Chappell claims the pair's animosity began when Botham accused him of verbal abuse in a match between Australia and Somerset at Taunton two years before, even though Chappell had rested himself for that game.

The enmity continued when Botham, who was suspended for cannabis use in 1986, was recruited as a bowling adviser with England and Chappell quipped that the only thing he could teach cricketers was "how to roll spliffs".

A truce briefly seemed possible after the pair appeared as pundits on Australian TV in 1998.

Yet all hopes of reconciliation were ended last year when Chappell devoted 10 pages of his autobiography, Hitting Out, to savaging Botham.

Among the few printable epithets they have thrown at each other, Chappell once referred to Botham as an "habitual liar", while the Englishman described his protagonist as a "nonentity".

Chappell also claimed that an Australian journalist once approached Botham to find out why the former England captain was sticking to a story, which he also related in his 1995 book Don't Tell Kath, when he knew it to be false.

Botham is alleged to have replied: "Because it makes me look a big man in England."