IAN CHAPPELL

'Ian Michael Chappell' (born September 26, 1943 in Unley, South Australia), known as 'Chappelli' is a former Australian Test cricketer, who captained Australia between 1971 and 1975 before playing a central role in the breakaway World Series Cricket (WSC) organisation. Born into a cricketing family, Chappell had an inconsistent career in Tests as an aggressive top order batsman until his appointment as captain. Subsequently, Chappell earned a reputation as one of the greatest captains the game has seen.^[1] Following his retirement, Chappell has pursued a high-profile career as a sports journalist and commentator for Channel Nine in Australia.

Contents

Family and early career

Test career

Inconsistent form

Captaincy

A team in his own image

The ugly Australians

The Ashes regained and retirement

World Series Cricket

Rebel skipper

Return to Tests

Legacy

Media career

Private Life

References

Notes

External link

Family and early career

Chappell was the first of three sons born in Adelaide to Martin and Jeanne (nee Richardson). He was steeped in the game from a very early age: his father was a noted grade cricketer in Adelaide who put a bat in his hands as soon as he could walk, while his maternal grandfather was the famous all-round sportsman Victor Richardson, who captained Australia at the end of a nineteen-Test career.^[2] Chappell was given weekly batting lessons from the age of five, as were younger brothers Greg and Trevor, who also played for Australia. Greg suceeded Ian as Australian captain.
Chappell attended St Leonards primary school, where he played his first competitive match at the age of seven. He was then enrolled at Prince Alfred College, a private secondary school noted for producing many great cricketers, including Australian captains Joe Darling and Clem Hill. Chappell also played Australian football and baseball, competing in the Claxton Shield for South Australia and winning All-Australian selection in 1964 and 1966 as a catcher.^[3] At the age of 18, his form in grade cricket for Glenelg led to a first-class debut for South Australia (SA) against Tasmania in early 1962, replacing West Indian Garry Sobers who was needed for a Test match in the Caribbean.^[4]
The aggressive style of Sobers and SA captain Les Favell heavily influenced Chappell in his formative years in major cricket.^[5] In 1962–63, Chappell made his initial first-class century against New South Wales, led by Australian captain Richie Benaud. Benaud bowled a long spell at the tyro batsman and came away impressed by his concentration and technique. Later in the season at Brisbane, Chappell batted at number three for the first time, the place where he would make his name. His debut in the position brought a score of 205 not out.^[6] He then spent the northern summer of 1963 as a professional in England's Lancashire League with Ramsbottom^[7] and played a single first-class match for Lancashire.

Test career

In 1963–64, Chappell was the youngest member of the SA team that won the Sheffield Shield.^[8] The following season, Chappell's century against Victoria resulted in selection for a one-off Test against Pakistan at Melbourne in December 1964. He made 11 and took four catches in the slips,^[9] but was dropped and did not return to the team until the fourth Ashes Test of 1965-66. Chappell backed his aggressive batting with brilliant fielding in the slips cordon and showed promise as a leg-spinner. At this point, the selectors and captain Bob Simpson considered him an all-rounder^[10] as he batted at number seven and bowled 26 (eight-ball) overs for the match. He retained his place for the following Test, and for the tour to South Africa in the summer of 1966–67.
Playing in a side defeated 1-3, Chappell found the going tough. His highest score in ten Test innings was 49, while his five wickets cost 59 runs each. In the first Test of 1967–68 against India at the Adelaide Oval, he failed twice batting in the middle order. Heading into the second Test at Melbourne, Chappell's place looked to be on the line, but he rode his luck to score 151, and take three catches. The innings contained five chances.^[10] However, in the remainder of the series he scored only 46 runs in four innings, so his selection for the 1968 tour of England was based on potential rather than form.
In England, Chappell rewarded the faith of the selectors by scoring the most first-class runs on tour (1,261) and leading the Australian Test aggregates with 348 runs (at 43.5). His top score was 81 in the fourth Test at Leeds. ''Wisden'' lauded his back-foot play and judged him to be the most difficult Australian player to dismiss.^[12] Australia drew the series and retained the Ashes.

Inconsistent form

A string of big scores during the 1968–69 season earned for Chappell the Australian Cricketer of the Year award. Against the touring West Indies, Chappell hit 177, 188 not out, 117, 180 and 165 before the New Year. Two of these centuries were made in the Tests, where Chappell's average for 548 runs was 68.5. Appointed vice-captain of the team, he was elevated to number three in the batting order, and became an occasional bowler.
He followed up with a successful tour of India in late 1969. Demonstrating great fluency against spin bowling, Chappell compiled 138 at Delhi and 99 at Kolkata. His ability against fast or slow bowling earned high praise,^[13] most famously from his skipper Bill Lawry. When the Australians arrived in South Africa from the sub continent in early 1970, Lawry told the local media that Chappell was the best all-round batsman in the world. This assessment looked ridiculous at the end of the four Test series. Chappell managed just 92 runs (at 11.5 average), with a top score of 34, in a team that lost 0-4.^[14]
It was on this tour that Chappell first clashed with cricket administrators over pay and conditions.^[15] So successful was the series against South Africa that the home authorities requested that an extra Test be scheduled, which the Australian Board of Control agreed to. Incensed that the players were not consulted about this change, Chappell led a group of Australian players in a demand for more money to play the proposed game. Eventually, after Chappell and his supporters refused to back down, the extra Test was cancelled.^[16]

Captaincy

At the start of the 1970–71 season, Chappell was appointed as SA captain when the long-serving Les Favell surprisingly retired. However, Chappell's main objective for the season was to maintain his place in the Test team. His younger brother Greg was scoring heavily at first-class level, and he made his debut in the second Test of the summer. Facing a tough and talented England side led by Ray Illingworth, Chappell got a half-century in each of the first two Tests, but failed to go on to a big score while Greg Chappell scored 108 on his debut. Rain washed out the third Test. Chappell, temporarily promoted to open the batting, failed in the fourth Test as Australia lost. Another such performance could see him omitted from the team. In the fifth Test at Melbourne, he returned to number three and started nervously. Dropped on 0 and 14, Chappell found form and went to his maiden Ashes century (111 from 212 balls),^[17] which he followed up with 28 and 104 in the sixth Test.
The washed out Test had caused a change to the fixture and an unprecedented seventh Test was played at Sydney in February 1971.^[18] Trailing 0-1 in the series, Australia could still retain the Ashes by winning the last Test. Australia's performances were hampered by playing slow, defensive cricket. In a radical attempt to breathe some aggression into the team, the selectors sacked captain Bill Lawry and appointed Chappell in his stead.^[19] Although dismayed by the way Lawry was dismissed,^[20] Chappell responded with an attacking performance as captain. However, Australia lost a close match by 62 runs, forfeiting the Ashes for the first time in 12 years. Chappell gained some consolation at the end of a dramatic season when he led SA to the Sheffield Shield for the first time in seven years.

A team in his own image

"Chappell fashioned the Australian team in his own image in the next few years: aggressive, resourceful and insouciant".^[21] Australia lost an unofficial Test series 1-2 to a Rest of the World team that toured in 1971–72 as a replacement for the politically unacceptable South Africans. Chappell was the outstanding batsman of the summer, making four centuries in his 634 runs. He took the team to England in 1972 and was unlucky not to regain the Ashes in a rubber that ended 2-2. Greg Chappell emerged as a leading batsman during the series, batting one place below his brother in the order. The siblings shared several crucial partnerships, most notably 201 at the Oval in the last Test when they became the first brothers to score centuries in the same Test innings.^[22]
In 1972–73, Australia had resounding victories against Pakistan (at home) and the West Indies (away). Chappell's leadership qualities stood out in a number of tight situations. He hit his highest Test score of 196 (from 243 balls) in the first Test against Pakistan at Adelaide.
Chappell was at his best on the indifferent pitches of the Caribbean. The highest scoring batsman on either side with 542 runs (at 77.4 average), Chappell hit two centuries and a "glorious"^[23] 97 on a poor wicket in the third Test at Trinidad, batting with an injured ankle. This set up a dramatic last day when the West Indies needed just 66 runs to win with six wickets in hand at lunch. The West Indies collapsed against an Australian attack inspired by a brief, positive talk from Chappell during the break. Chappell's team would be the last to leave the West Indies as winners for 22 years.

The ugly Australians

A six-Test series against New Zealand in 1973–74 on both sides of the Tasman brought more success - in the drawn first Test at Wellington, the Chappells created history when Ian and Greg both scored a century in each innings, sharing partnerships of 264 and 86. The Australians surprised by losing to the Kiwis for the first time ever, in the second Test at Christchurch. During this match, Chappell was involved in a verbal confrontation with the leading New Zealand batsman, Glenn Turner.^[24] The Australians then played a very ill-tempered tour match at Dunedin, which didn't enhance the reputation of Chappell or his men, before winning the final Test at Auckland. On this tour, the behaviour of the team was often called in to question, with some journalists labelling Chappell's team the "Ugly Australians". It would not be the last time they received this type of criticism. In his 1976 autobiography, Chappell wrote about his attitude to the opposition:^[25]

... although we didn't deliberately set out to be a 'bunch of bastards' when we walked on to the field, I'd much prefer any team I captained to be described like that than as 'a nice bunch of blokes on the field.' As captain of Australia my philosophy was simple: between 11.00am and 6.00pm there was no time to be a nice guy. I believed that on the field players should concentrate on giving their best to the team, to themselves and to winning; in other words, playing hard and fairly within the rules. To my mind, doing all that left no time for being a nice guy.

The Ashes regained and retirement

The highlight of Chappell's career came in 1974–75 when Australia reclaimed the Ashes with a 4-1 win over the touring Englishmen. Fortified by the new fast bowling partnership of Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson, the Australia team played hard, aggressive cricket and received criticism for the amount of short-pitched bowling that was employed.^[26] Chappell top-scored with 90 on an "unreliable" pitch^[27] on the first day of the series, at Brisbane. His catching in the slips was memorable as the Australian fast bowlers created plenty of chances from the shell shocked English batsmen.
Within months, Chappell was back in England leading Australia in the inaugural World Cup. Despite his open sceptism of one-day cricket as a legitimate form of the game, Chappell guided his team to the final where they lost a memorable match to the West Indies.^[28]
By now, the workload of the captaincy was telling on Chappell and the following four-Test Ashes series dampened his appetite for the game. His form remained good, and in the last Test at the Oval, he scored 192 to set up what appeared to be certain victory. However, England managed to grind out a draw and feeling careworn, Chappell announced his resignation from the captaincy on the last day of the match.
Chappell remained available for Test cricket, and he played the 1975–76 series against the West Indies under the captaincy of his brother Greg. Australia avenged their loss in the World Cup final by winning 5-1 to claim the unofficial title as best team in the world. Once again, Chappell proved himself as a great performer in adversity when he made 156 during Australia's only loss for the summer, at Perth in the second Test. Always prepared to take on the Caribbean fast bowlers with the hook shot, he finished with 449 runs in the six Tests at an average of 44.9. During the series, Chappell passed two significant milestones when he became the fourth Australian to pass 5,000 runs in Test cricket and the first player to hold one hundred Test catches for Australia.
The summer ended in controversy and triumph. During a dispute with SA administrators over team selection, he threatened a "strike" action by the SA team. After the matter was sorted out to his satisfaction, Chappell led his side to the Sheffield Shield title for the second time in his career. At the end of the season, he announced his retirement from first-class cricket aged only 32.

World Series Cricket

In 1976, Chappell toured South Africa with Richie Benaud's International Wanderers team, released his autobiography ''Chappelli'' and was named as one of Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Year.^[29] He was hired to spend the summer of 1976–77 as a guest professional in the Melbourne district competition, where he was paid more than he had been as Australian captain. During the season he was involved in a famous altercation with a young English all-rounder who was in Victoria on a cricketing scholarship, Ian Botham. Both men have put forward vastly different versions as to what happened during the physical confrontation in a Melbourne pub.^[30] The animosity between the two men has lasted until the present day and it was used as a promotional gimmick by Channel Nine when Botham temporarily joined Chappell as a television commentator during the 1998–99 season.^[31]

Rebel skipper

Chappell's part in the World Series Cricket (WSC) schism was the result of years of personal disaffection with cricket officialdom.^[32] Approached to lead an Australian team in a proposed break-away professional competition organised by media magnate Kerry Packer for Channel Nine, Chappell provided Packer with a list of Australian players to be signed. He was a central figure in the organisation and marketing of WSC.
Chappell played two seasons (1977-78 and 1978-79) in Australia as captain of the WSC Australian XI, enhancing his reputation against high quality opposition as both batsman and captain. In early 1979, he led a tour to the West Indies where a very hard-fought series finished in a 1-1 result, which some considered his greatest captaincy achievement.

Return to Tests

Convinced to return to official cricket when WSC ended, Chappell resumed as captain of SA in 1979–80. It was a season too far for the increasingly irascible Chappell. In a match against Tasmania, he was reported for swearing and suspended for three matches. He was controversially selected for Australia mid-season,^[33] and his Test career finished with scores of 75 and 26 not out at the MCG against England in February 1980.

'Ian Chappell's Captaincy Record'

Season	Opponent	Played	Won	Lost	Drawn
1970-1	England (home)	1	0	1	0
1972	England (away)	5	2	2	1
1972-73	Pakistan (home)	3	3	0	0
1972-73	West Indies (away)	5	3	0	2
1973-74	New Zealand (home)	3	2	0	1
1973-74	New Zealand (away)	3	1	1	1
1974-75	England (home)	6	4	1	1
1975	England (away)	4	1	0	3
	'Official Tests'	'30'	'16'	'5'	'9'
1971-72	Rest of World XI (home)	5	1	2	2
1977-78	WSC Supertests (home)	5	1	4	0
1978-79	WSC Supertests (home)	4	1	2	1
1979	WSC Supertests (West Indies)	5	1	1	3
	'All Matches'	'49'	'20'	'14'	'15'

Legacy

"Chappell will be remembered as much for his bid to improve the players' lot as he will for his run-getting and captaincy".^[34] During the WSC period, Chappell founded a players association with a loan provided by Kerry Packer. In 2005, Chappell was elected as a member of the Australian Cricketers' Association executive.^[35]
In July 2000, Chappell was inducted into the Federation of International Cricketers' Associations (FICA) Cricket Hall of Fame^[36] The SACA dedicated two new grandstands at the Adelaide Oval to Ian and Greg Chappell in 2003. The SACA president Ian McLachlan called the Chappells, "the most famous cricketing family in South Australia"^[37]
Chappell is the leading advocate for greater formal recognition of the first Australian sporting team to travel overeas, the Aboriginal cricket team that toured England in 1868.^[38]

Media career

Chappell began working as a commentator for Channel Nine's cricket coverage in the 1980–81 season, a position he retains. The major controversy of his first season was the "Underarm Incident" which involved his two younger brothers in an ODI played between Australia and New Zealand at the MCG. Chappell showed no fraternal bias and was vehement in his criticism of the tactic. He wrote in a newspaper column on the matter: "Fair dinkum, Greg, how much pride do you sacrifice to win $35,000?"^[39]
In 2006, Chappell released an anthology of his cricket writings entitled ''A Golden Age''.^[40]

Private Life

After leaving school, Chappell spent two years as a clerk in sharebroker's office which ended when he went to play league cricket in England. He then worked as a promotions representative for Nestle and the cigarette manufacturer WD & HO Wills. After eight years with Wills, Chappell capitalised on his fame as Australian captain by forming his own company specialising in advertising, promotion and journalism, which has remained his profession. He is twice married, and has a daughter Amanda with his first wife Kay. Chappell now lives in Sydney with second wife Barbara.

References

Brayshaw, Ian (1984): ''The Chappell Era'', ABC Books. ISBN 0 642 527288.
Chappell, Ian (1976): ''Chappelli'', Hutchinson Australia. ISBN 0 09 130170 x.
Haigh, Gideon (1993): ''The Cricket War - the Inside Story of Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket'', Text Publishing. ISBN 9 781863 720274.
Harte, Chris (1993): ''A History of Australian Cricket'', Andre Deutsch. ISBN 0 233 98825 4.

Notes

1. MCG biography. Retrieved 20 August 2007.
2. SA Memory: Richardson, Victor York 1894&ndash1969. Accessed 28 August 2007.
3. WA Claxton Shield club. Retrieved 18 August 2007.
4. Chappell (1976), p 39.
5. Chappell (1976), pp 40-41.
6. Brayshaw (1984), p 30.
7. Cricket Archive. Retrieved 18 August 2007.
8. Cricinfo.com. Retrieved 19 August 2007.
9. ''Wisden 1966''. Retrieved 17 August 2007.
10. Brayshaw (1984), p 32.
11. Brayshaw (1984), p 32.
12. ''Wisden 1969''. Retrieved 19 August 2007.
13. ''Wisden 1971''. Retrieved 20 August 2007.
14. Cricinfo.com. Retrieved 17 August 2007.
15. Brayshaw (1984), p 33.
16. Cricinfo.com. Retrieved 19 August 2007.
17. ''Wisden 1972''. Retrieved 17 August 2007.
18. ''Wisden 1972''. Retrieved 17 August 2007.
19. ''Wisden 1972''. Retrieved 17 August 2007.
20. Retired Australian cricketers' newsletter. Retrieved 18 August 2007.
21. Cricinfo.com. Retrieved 17 August 2007.
22. ''Wisden 1973''. Retrieved 17 August 2007.
23. ''Wisden 1974''. Retrieved 17 August 2007.]
24. cricinfo.com. Retrieved 17 August 2007.
25. Chappell (1976), p 33.
26. ''Wisden 1976''. Retrieved 18 August 2007.
27. ''Wisden 1976''.
28. ''Wisden 1976''.
29. ''Wisden 1976''. Retrieved 19 August 2007.
30. Cricinfo.com. Retrieved 17 August 2007.
31. Cricinfo.com. Retrieved 20 August 2007.
32. ABC TV: 7.30 Report (transcript). Retrieved 20 August 2007.
33. ''Wisden 1981''. Retrieved 18 August 2007.
34. ''Wisden 1976''. Retrieved 18 August 2007.
35. Australian Cricketrs' Association. Retrieved 18 August 2007.
36. Cricinfo.com. Retrieved 19 August 2007.
37. Cricinfo.com. Retrieved 19 August 2007.
38. Cricket Australia. Retrieved 19 August 2007.
39. McGregor (1985), p 209.
40. ''Sydney Morning Herald'' 24 September 2006.

External link

★ CricInfo Player Profile : Ian Chappell