Ian Chappell
Encyclopedia
Ian Michael Chappell is a former cricket
er who played for South Australia
and Australia. He captained Australia between 1971 and 1975 before taking a central role in the breakaway World Series Cricket
organisation. Born into a cricketing family—his grandfather and brother also captained Australia—Chappell made a hesitant start to international cricket playing as a right-hand middle-order batsman and spin bowler
. He found his niche when promoted to bat at number three
. Known as “Chappelli”, he earned a reputation as one of the greatest captains the game has seen. Chappell's blunt verbal manner led to a series of confrontations with opposition players and cricket administrators; the issue of sledging
first arose during his tenure as captain and he was a driving force behind the professionalisation of Australian cricket in the 1970s.
John Arlott
called him, “a cricketer of effect rather than the graces”. An animated presence at the batting crease, he constantly adjusted his equipment and clothing, and restlessly tapped his bat on the ground as the bowler ran in. Basing his game on a sound defence learned during many hours of childhood lessons, Chappell employed the drive and square cut to full effect. He had an idiosyncratic method of playing back and across to a ball of full length and driving wide of mid on, but his trademark shot was the hook, famously saying "three bouncers an over should be worth 12 runs to me". A specialist slip fielder, he was the fourth player to take one hundred Test catches.
Since his retirement in 1980, he has pursued a high-profile career as a sports journalist and cricket commentator, predominately with Channel Nine
. He remains a major figure in Australian cricket: in 2006, Shane Warne
called Chappell the biggest influence on his career. On 9 July 2009, Ian Chappell was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.
to Martin and Jeanne (née Richardson), Chappell was steeped in the game from an early age. His father was a noted Adelaide grade cricketer who put a bat in his hands as soon as he could walk, and his maternal grandfather was a famous all-round sportsman Vic Richardson
, who captained Australia at the end of a nineteen-Test career. Chappell was given weekly batting lessons from the age of five, as were younger brothers Greg
and Trevor
, who both went on to play for Australia.
Chappell grew up in the beachside suburb of Glenelg
and attended the local St Leonard's Primary School where he played his first competitive match at the age of seven. He was later selected for the South Australian state schoolboys team. He then enrolled at Prince Alfred College
, a private secondary school noted for producing many Test cricketers, including the Australian captains Joe Darling
and Clem Hill
. His other sporting pursuits included Australian football
and baseball
: Chappell's performances for his state in the Claxton Shield
won him All-Australian selection in 1964 and 1966 as a catcher
. At the age of 18, his form in grade cricket
for Glenelg
led to his first-class
debut for South Australia
(SA) against Tasmania
in early 1962. Chappell replaced West Indian Garry Sobers who was selected for a Test match in the Caribbean.
The aggressive style of Sobers and SA captain Les Favell
heavily influenced Chappell during his formative years in major cricket. In 1962–63, Chappell made his initial first-class century against a New South Wales
team led by Australian captain Richie Benaud
, who was bemused by the young batsman's habit of gritting his teeth as he faced up; to Benaud, it looked as if he was grinning. Chappell spent the northern summer of 1963 as a professional in England's Lancashire League with Ramsbottom and played a single first-class match for Lancashire
.
at Brisbane
, and scored 205 not out. He was the youngest member of the SA team that won the Sheffield Shield that season. A century against Victoria
early the following season resulted in Chappell's selection for a one-off Test against Pakistan at Melbourne
in December 1964. He made 11 and took four catches, but was dropped until the Fourth Test in the 1965-66 Ashes series. Chappell supplemented his aggressive batting with brilliant fielding in the slips
, and he showed promise as a leg-spinner
. At this point, the selectors and captain Bob Simpson
considered him an all-rounder
: he batted at number seven and bowled 26 (eight-ball) overs for the match.
In England, Chappell rewarded the faith of the selectors by scoring the most first-class runs on the tour (1,261 runs, including 202 not out against Warwickshire
), leading the Australian Test aggregates with 348 runs (at 43.50). His top score was 81 in the fourth Test at Leeds
. Wisden
lauded his play off the back foot and judged him the most difficult Australian batsman to dismiss. In a summer severely affected by rain, Australia drew the series and retained The Ashes
.
Following up with a successful tour of India in late 1969, Chappell demonstrated his fluency against spin bowling by compiling Test innings of 138 at Delhi
and 99 at Kolkata
. His ability against both fast and slow bowling earned high praise, including from his captain Bill Lawry
. When the Australians arrived in South Africa in early 1970, following their victory over India, Lawry told the local media that Chappell was the best all-round batsman in the world. His appraisal looked misguided when Chappell managed just 92 runs (at 11.5 average), with a top score of 34, as Australia lost 0–4.
On this tour, Chappell clashed with cricket administrators over pay and conditions for the first time. The South African authorities requested that an extra Test be added to the fixture and the Australian Board of Control
consented. Incensed that the players were not consulted about the change, Chappell led a group of his teammates in a demand for more money to play the proposed game. Eventually the match was cancelled after Chappell and his supporters refused to back down.
Chappell became SA captain when the long-serving Les Favell
retired at the start of the 1970–71 season. His younger brother Greg made his debut in the second Test of the summer against Ray Illingworth's England. Facing an English attack led by the hostile fast bowling of John Snow
, Chappell scored a half-century in each of the first two Tests, but failed to capitalise on good starts while Greg Chappell scored 108 in his initial innings. Rain caused the abandonment of the third Test without a ball bowled. Temporarily promoted to open the batting, Chappell failed in the fourth Test as Australia lost. In the fifth Test at Melbourne, he returned to number three and started nervously. Dropped on 0 and 14, Chappell found form and went on to post his maiden Ashes century (111 from 212 balls), which he followed with scores of 28 and 104 in the sixth Test.
The washed-out Test resulted in a late change to the schedule and an unprecedented seventh Test was played at Sydney in February 1971. Trailing 0–1 in the series, Australia could retain The Ashes by winning this game. 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. Dismayed by the manner of Lawry's dismissal, Chappell responded with an attacking performance as captain, he won the toss, put England in and dismissed them for 184, and Australia led the first innings by 80 runs, but set 223 to win they folded for 160 and lost The Ashes
after holding them for 12 years. Chappell gained some consolation at the end of a dramatic summer when he led SA to the Sheffield Shield, the team's first win for seven years.
Chappell's battles against the short-pitched bowling of Snow during the season compelled him to reappraise his game. Following a conversation with Sir Donald Bradman, he decided to reinstate the hook shot and spent the winter months practising the stroke by hitting baseballs thrown by his brother Greg. Although he still regularly lost his wicket after playing the shot, Chappell felt that the psychological benefit of showing aggression to opposing bowlers offset the times that he was dismissed for a low score.
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. Pakistan "appeared probable winners of the last two Tests on the second last day of each game", yet Chappell's team managed to win on both occasions.
On indifferent pitches in the Caribbean, Chappell was the highest-scoring batsman of the Test series with 542 runs (at 77.4 average). He hit 209 in a tour match against Barbados
, two Test centuries and a "glorious" 97 on a poor pitch at Trinidad
in the third Test, 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 home team collapsed against an inspired Australian bowling attack supported by Chappell's aggressive field-placements. Chappell's team would be the last to leave the West Indies as winners for 22 years.
in 1973–74. Chappell led his team to a 2–0 victory in the three Tests played in Australia. During the third Test at Adelaide, he equalled the world record of six catches in a Test match by a fielder, which was beaten by his brother Greg the following season. In the drawn first Test at Wellington
, the Chappells became the first brothers to each score a century in both innings of a Test match. The Australians lost to the Kiwis for the first time ever in the second Test at Christchurch, when Chappell was involved in a verbal confrontation with the leading New Zealand batsman, Glenn Turner
. The Australians then played an ill-tempered tour match at Dunedin
that didn't enhance the reputation of Chappell or his team, before winning the final Test at Auckland
. On this tour, the behaviour of the team was questioned with some journalists labelling them "ugly Australians". In 1976, Chappell wrote about his attitude to the opposition:
The increasing prevalence of verbal confrontation on the field (later known as sledging
) concerned cricket administrators and became a regular topic for the media. Its instigation is sometimes attributed to Chappell. By his own admission, he was a frequent user of profanity who was often at “boiling point” on the field, but claims that the various incidents he was involved in were not a premeditated tactic. Rather, they were a case of him losing his temper with an opponent. Sledging continues to cause controversy in the game; when the Australian team is involved, the phrase “ugly Australians” is still invoked in relation to the issue.
The highlight of Chappell's career was Australia's 4–1 win over England in 1974–75 that reclaimed The Ashes. Strengthened by the new fast bowling partnership of Dennis Lillee
and Jeff Thomson
, the Australians played aggressive cricket and received criticism for the amount of short-pitched
bowling they employed. Chappell scored 90 on an "unreliable" pitch on the first day of the opening Test at Brisbane. He finished the six Tests with 387 runs at 35.18 average, and took 11 catches in the slips. The Test matches attracted big crowds and record gate takings, enabling Chappell to negotiate a bonus for the players from the Australian Cricket Board
(ACB). Although this more than doubled the players' pay, their remuneration amounted to only 4.5% of the revenue generated by the series.
Within months, Chappell was back in England leading Australia in the inaugural World Cup
. His dislike of the defensive nature of limited-over cricket led to the Australians placing a full slips cordon for the new ball and employing Test-match style tactics in the tournament. Despite the apparent unsuitability of this approach, Chappell guided the team to the final where they lost a memorable match to the West Indies.
The workload of the captaincy was telling on Chappell and the four-Test Ashes series that followed the World Cup dampened his appetite for the game. After winning the only completed match of the series, the first Test at Birmingham
, Australia’s retention of the Ashes was anti-climactic: the third Test at Leeds was abandoned due to vandalism of the pitch during the night before the last day’s play. In the last Test at the Oval, Chappell scored 192 from 367 balls to set up an apparent victory. However, England managed to bat for almost 15 hours to grind out a draw and Chappell announced his resignation from the captaincy on the final day of the match. In 30 Tests as captain, he scored 2,550 runs at an average of 50, with seven centuries.
boots with the three stripes clearly visible. This breached the prevailing protocol of cricketers wearing all white. His highest innings of the summer was 156 during Australia's only loss, at Perth
in the second Test. Wisden nominated him as the most influential player of the series for his 449 runs at an average of 44.90. Throughout the course of the series, Chappell passed two significant milestones when he became the fourth Australian to make 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 in the domestic competition. During a dispute with the SACA
over team selection, he threatened a "strike" action by the SA team. After the matter was resolved, Chappell led the side to the Sheffield Shield title for the second time in his career and shared the inaugural Sheffield Shield player of the season award with his brother Greg. He retired from first-class cricket at the end of the season, aged only 32.
. 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. The animosity between them continues and Channel Nine
used it as a marketing ploy when Botham temporarily partnered Chappell as a television commentator during the 1998–99 season. Botham again revived the feud in his 2007 autobiography with another version of the incident.
, Bob Hawke
, he explored the possibility of unionising the players.
Approached to lead an Australian team in World Series Cricket
(WSC), a breakaway professional competition organised by Kerry Packer
for Channel Nine, Chappell signed a three-year contract worth A$75,000 in 1976. His participation was, "fundamental to the credibility of the enterprise". Chappell devised the list of Australian players to be signed, and was involved in the organisation and marketing of WSC. His central role was the result of, "years of personal disaffection with cricket officialdom", in particular Don Bradman. Recently, Chappell wrote:
In WSC's debut season of 1977–78, Chappell hit the first Supertest century and finished fifth in overall averages. The prevalence of short-pitched fast bowling and a serious injury to Australian David Hookes
led to the innovation of batting helmets; Chappell was one of the many batsmen to use one. Following their 1975–76 tour of Australia, the West Indies adopted a four-man fast bowling attack, while the World XI contained fast bowlers of the calibre of Imran Khan
, Mike Procter
, Garth Le Roux
, Clive Rice
and Sarfraz Nawaz
. The constant diet of pace bowling undermined the confidence of some batsmen during WSC. Chappell’s form fell away during the second season and he scored only 181 runs at 25.85 in four Supertests. During the last six days of the season, the WSC Australians lost the finals of both the limited-overs competition (to the West Indies XI) and the Supertest series (to the World XI), thus forfeiting the winner-takes-all prize money. After the latter match, Chappell vented his frustrations on World XI captain Tony Greig
by refusing to shake his hand and criticising Greig’s inconsequential contribution to his team’s victory. The final act of the competition was a series between the WSC Australians and the WSC West Indies played in the Caribbean in the spring of 1979. After the Australians suffered a heavy defeat in the first Supertest at Jamaica
, Chappell rallied his team to draw the five match series one-all. His best effort were scores of 61 and 86 at Barbados
.
against England in February 1980. In his final first-class match, SA needed to beat Victoria to win the Sheffield Shield. Although Chappell scored 112, SA lost the match and the shield. Ironically, the umpires voted him the competition's player of the season for a second time.
in 1978). He passed fifty in half of his innings with a top score of 86 at Christchurch in 1973–74. In his final season of international cricket, he scored 63 not out (from 65 balls) against the West Indies at the SCG to win the player of the match award; five days later he hit an unbeaten 60 from 50 balls in his penultimate ODI appearance, against England. As captain, he recorded six wins and five losses from 11 matches.
documentary The Chappell Era, broadcast in 2002, encapsulated Chappell's significance to Australian cricket. Subtitled Cricket in the '70s, it chronicled the rise of the Australian cricket team under Chappell, the fight for better pay for the players, and professionalisation of the game through WSC. During the program, Chappell reiterated his criticisms of cricket's administration at the time.
In Wisden, Richie Benaud wrote, "Chappell will be remembered as much for his bid to improve the players' lot as he will for his run-getting and captaincy". During the WSC period, he founded a players' association with a loan provided by Kerry Packer. Despite Chappell's continued support for the organisation after his retirement, apathy and a lack of recognition from the ACB led to its demise in 1988. Revived in 1997 as the Australian Cricketers' Association
(ACA), it is now an important organisation within the structure of Australian cricket. In 2005, Chappell became a member of the ACA executive.
Chappell was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1986, the FICA
Cricket Hall of Fame in 2000 and the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame
in 2003. Two new grandstands at the Adelaide Oval were named the Chappell Stands; at the dedication ceremony in 2003, the SACA president Ian McLachlan
called the Chappells, "the most famous cricketing family in South Australia". In 2004, the Chappell family was again honoured with the creation of the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy
, an annual series of ODI matches played between Australia and New Zealand.
Chappell is the leading advocate for greater formal recognition of the first Australian sporting team to travel overseas, the Australian Aboriginal cricket team in England in 1868.
. He did television commentary for the 0–10 Network
and the BBC
before playing WSC. During the 1980s, Chappell spent eight years co-hosting with Mike Gibson, Wide World of Sports
, an innovative magazine-style program broadcast by Channel Nine on Saturday afternoons and co-hosted a sister show, Sports Sunday, for five years. Early in his stint on the former program, he swore without realising that he was live to air. A similar incident occurred during a live telecast of the 1993 Ashes series. Channel Nine suspended him on both occasions.
, 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 his brother Greg's tactic. He wrote in a newspaper column on the matter: "Fair dinkum, Greg, how much pride do you sacrifice to win $35,000?"
He supported the claims of Rod Marsh
to the Australian captaincy over the incumbent, Kim Hughes
, in the early 1980s. The constant campaign against Hughes destabilised his authority. Compounding the situation, the ACB compelled Hughes to be interviewed by Chappell on a regular basis. When Hughes resigned in 1984, throwing Australian cricket into turmoil, Chappell received a share of the blame for the outcome.
Chappell had a direct influence on Hughes’ successor, Allan Border
. Early in his captaincy tenure, Border was struggling with the burdens of the position so the ACB appointed Bob Simpson as team coach to assist. This led to animosity between Chappell and Simpson as Chappell derided the need for a coach. Simpson responded by writing that the peer influence of older players helping younger players fell away during the era when the Chappell brothers led the team, and he was redressing the problem. Chappell believed that the Border-Simpson leadership was too defensive and that Simpson usurped too much of Border's control of the team; Border heeded Chappell’s assessment and adopted a more aggressive on-field approach later in his career. Mark Taylor
, who captained the team after Border, moved to dilute Simpson's authority. Chappell remains a long-standing critic of the use of coaches by national teams.
biography, Chappelli Speaks Out (published in the UK as Hitting Out — the Ian Chappell Story) was written in collaboration with Chappell and released in 2005. It caused controversy due to Chappell’s assessment of Steve Waugh
, who he described as “selfish” and as a captain, “ran out of ideas very quickly”. Waugh responded by writing, “to say Chappell's criticism irked me would be an understatement.” He categorised the criticisms as "personal" and noted that Chappell, “always sweated on my blunders and reported them with an 'I told you so' mentality”. Chappell's first book was an account of the 1972 Ashes tour, Tigers Among the Lions, followed by a series of books of cricketing humour and anecdotes published in the early 1980s. The more analytical The Cutting Edge, an appraisal of modern cricket, appeared in 1992. In 2006, Chappell released an anthology of his cricket writings entitled A Golden Age. He is a regular contributor to Cricinfo.com.
and, later, 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 his second wife Barbara-Ann. In recent years, Chappell has been a high-profile activist for better treatment of asylum seekers by the Australian government, in particular its policy of mandatory detention
.
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
er who played for South Australia
Southern Redbacks
The South Australia cricket team, nicknamed the Southern Redbacks and known as the West End Redbacks due to their sponsorship agreement with local brewers West End, are an Australian first class cricket team based in Adelaide, South Australia, and represent the state of South Australia...
and Australia. He captained Australia between 1971 and 1975 before taking a central role in the breakaway World Series Cricket
World Series Cricket
World Series Cricket was a break away professional cricket competition staged between 1977 and 1979 and organised by Kerry Packer for his Australian television network, Nine Network. The matches ran in opposition to established international cricket...
organisation. Born into a cricketing family—his grandfather and brother also captained Australia—Chappell made a hesitant start to international cricket playing as a right-hand middle-order batsman and spin bowler
Spin bowling
Spin bowling is a technique used for bowling in the sport of cricket. Practitioners are known as spinners or spin bowlers.-Purpose:The main aim of spin bowling is to bowl the cricket ball with rapid rotation so that when it bounces on the pitch it will deviate, thus making it difficult for the...
. He found his niche when promoted to bat at number three
Batting order (cricket)
In cricket, the batting order is the sequence in which batsmen play through their team's innings, there always being two batsmen taking part at any one time...
. Known as “Chappelli”, he earned a reputation as one of the greatest captains the game has seen. Chappell's blunt verbal manner led to a series of confrontations with opposition players and cricket administrators; the issue of sledging
Sledging (cricket)
Sledging is a term used in cricket to describe the practice whereby some players seek to gain an advantage by insulting or verbally intimidating the opposing player. The purpose is to try to weaken the opponent's concentration, thereby causing him to make mistakes or underperform...
first arose during his tenure as captain and he was a driving force behind the professionalisation of Australian cricket in the 1970s.
John Arlott
John Arlott
Leslie Thomas John Arlott OBE was an English journalist, author and cricket commentator for the BBC's Test Match Special. He was also a poet, wine connoisseur and former police officer in Hampshire...
called him, “a cricketer of effect rather than the graces”. An animated presence at the batting crease, he constantly adjusted his equipment and clothing, and restlessly tapped his bat on the ground as the bowler ran in. Basing his game on a sound defence learned during many hours of childhood lessons, Chappell employed the drive and square cut to full effect. He had an idiosyncratic method of playing back and across to a ball of full length and driving wide of mid on, but his trademark shot was the hook, famously saying "three bouncers an over should be worth 12 runs to me". A specialist slip fielder, he was the fourth player to take one hundred Test catches.
Since his retirement in 1980, he has pursued a high-profile career as a sports journalist and cricket commentator, predominately with Channel Nine
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
. He remains a major figure in Australian cricket: in 2006, Shane Warne
Shane Warne
Shane Keith Warne is a former Australian international cricketer widely regarded as one of the greatest bowlers in the history of the game. In 2000, he was selected by a panel of cricket experts as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Century, the only specialist bowler selected in the quintet...
called Chappell the biggest influence on his career. On 9 July 2009, Ian Chappell was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.
Family and early career
The first of three sons born in AdelaideAdelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
to Martin and Jeanne (née Richardson), Chappell was steeped in the game from an early age. His father was a noted Adelaide grade cricketer who put a bat in his hands as soon as he could walk, and his maternal grandfather was a famous all-round sportsman Vic Richardson
Vic Richardson
Victor York Richardson OBE was a leading Australian sportsman of the 1920s and 1930s, captaining the Australian cricket team and the South Australian Australian rules football team, representing Australia in baseball and South Australia in golf, winning the South Australian state tennis title and...
, who captained Australia at the end of a nineteen-Test career. Chappell was given weekly batting lessons from the age of five, as were younger brothers Greg
Greg Chappell
Gregory Stephen Chappell MBE is a former cricketer who captained Australia between 1975 and 1977 and then joined the breakaway World Series Cricket organisation, before returning to the Australian captaincy in 1979, a position he held until his retirement 1983...
and Trevor
Trevor Chappell
Trevor Martin Chappell is a former Australian cricketer, a member of the South Australian Chappell family which excelled at cricket...
, who both went on to play for Australia.
Glenelg, South Australia
Glenelg is a popular beach-side suburb of the South Australian capital of Adelaide. Located on the shore of Holdfast Bay in Gulf St Vincent, it has become a popular tourist destination due to its beach and many attractions, home to several hotels and dozens of restaurants.Established in 1836, it is...
and attended the local St Leonard's Primary School where he played his first competitive match at the age of seven. He was later selected for the South Australian state schoolboys team. He then enrolled at Prince Alfred College
Prince Alfred College
Prince Alfred College is an independent, day and boarding school for boys, located on Dequetteville Terrace, Kent Town, near the centre of Adelaide, South Australia...
, a private secondary school noted for producing many Test cricketers, including the Australian captains Joe Darling
Joe Darling
Joseph "Joe" Darling CBE was an Australian cricketer who played 34 Test matches as a specialist batsman between 1894 and 1905. As captain, he led Australia in a total of 21 Tests, winning seven and losing four. In Test cricket, he scored 1657 runs at an average of 28.56 per innings, including...
and Clem Hill
Clem Hill
Clement "Clem" Hill was an Australian cricketer who played 49 Test matches as a specialist batsman between 1896 and 1912. He captained the Australian team in ten Tests, winning five and losing five...
. His other sporting pursuits included Australian football
Australian rules football
Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...
and baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
: Chappell's performances for his state in the Claxton Shield
Claxton Shield
The Claxton Shield was the name of the premier baseball competition in Australia held between state-based teams, as well as the name of the trophy awarded to the champion team...
won him All-Australian selection in 1964 and 1966 as a catcher
Catcher
Catcher is a position for a baseball or softball player. When a batter takes his turn to hit, the catcher crouches behind home plate, in front of the umpire, and receives the ball from the pitcher. This is a catcher's primary duty, but he is also called upon to master many other skills in order to...
. At the age of 18, his form in grade cricket
South Australian Grade Cricket League
South Australian Grade Cricket is the semi-professional State league based in metropolitan Adelaide, South Australia. It is currently the highest level of cricket played in South Australia outside first class cricket...
for Glenelg
Glenelg Cricket Club
Glenelg Cricket Club are a Grade Cricket team located in Adelaide, South Australia.Their official website is http://www.gdcc.net.au...
led to his first-class
First-class cricket
First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...
debut for South Australia
Southern Redbacks
The South Australia cricket team, nicknamed the Southern Redbacks and known as the West End Redbacks due to their sponsorship agreement with local brewers West End, are an Australian first class cricket team based in Adelaide, South Australia, and represent the state of South Australia...
(SA) against Tasmania
Tasmanian Tigers
The Tasmanian cricket team, nicknamed the Tigers, represents the Australian state of Tasmania in cricket tournaments. They compete annually in the Australian domestic senior men's cricket season, which currently consists of the first-class Sheffield Shield, the limited overs Ford Ranger Cup, and...
in early 1962. Chappell replaced West Indian Garry Sobers who was selected for a Test match in the Caribbean.
The aggressive style of Sobers and SA captain Les Favell
Les Favell
Leslie Ernest Favell was an Australian cricketer who played in 19 Tests from 1954 to 1961. He was a strong batsman who liked to hit the ball around the ground and was a much loved character...
heavily influenced Chappell during his formative years in major cricket. In 1962–63, Chappell made his initial first-class century against a New South Wales
New South Wales Blues
The New South Wales cricket team are an Australian first class cricket team based in Sydney, New South Wales...
team led by Australian captain Richie Benaud
Richie Benaud
Richard "Richie" Benaud OBE is a former Australian cricketer who, since his retirement from international cricket in 1964, has become a highly regarded commentator on the game....
, who was bemused by the young batsman's habit of gritting his teeth as he faced up; to Benaud, it looked as if he was grinning. Chappell spent the northern summer of 1963 as a professional in England's Lancashire League with Ramsbottom and played a single first-class match for Lancashire
Lancashire County Cricket Club
Lancashire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Lancashire in cricket's County Championship. The club was founded in 1864 as a successor to Manchester Cricket Club and has played at Old Trafford since then...
.
International career
In 1963–64, Chappell batted at number three for SA for the first time, in a match against QueenslandQueensland Bulls
The Queensland cricket team, nicknamed the Bulls, are the Brisbane-based Queensland representative cricket team in Australia's domestic cricket tournaments:*Sheffield Shield, 4-day matches with first-class status, since the 1926/27 season...
at Brisbane
Brisbane Cricket Ground
The Brisbane Cricket Ground, commonly known as The Gabba, is a major sports stadium in Brisbane, the capital of Queensland. It is named after the suburb of Woolloongabba, in which it is located....
, and scored 205 not out. He was the youngest member of the SA team that won the Sheffield Shield that season. A century against Victoria
Victorian Bushrangers
The Victorian cricket team, nicknamed the Bushrangers, is an Australian cricket team based in Melbourne, that represents the state of Victoria. It is administered by Cricket Victoria and draws its players from Melbourne's Premier Cricket competition...
early the following season resulted in Chappell's selection for a one-off Test against Pakistan at Melbourne
Melbourne Cricket Ground
The Melbourne Cricket Ground is an Australian sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne and is home to the Melbourne Cricket Club. It is the tenth largest stadium in the world, the largest in Australia, the largest stadium for playing cricket, and holds the world record for the highest light...
in December 1964. He made 11 and took four catches, but was dropped until the Fourth Test in the 1965-66 Ashes series. Chappell supplemented his aggressive batting with brilliant fielding in the slips
Slip (cricket)
In the sport of cricket, a slip fielder is placed behind the batsman on the off side of the field. They are placed with the aim of catching an edged ball which is beyond the wicket-keeper's reach. Many teams employ two or three slips...
, and he showed promise as a leg-spinner
Leg spin
Leg spin is a type of spin bowling in the sport of cricket. A leg spinner bowls right-arm with a wrist spin action, causing the ball to spin from right to left in the cricket pitch, at the point of delivery. When the ball bounces, the spin causes the ball to deviate sharply from right to left, that...
. At this point, the selectors and captain Bob Simpson
Bob Simpson (cricketer)
Robert Baddeley Simpson AO is a former cricketer who played for New South Wales, Western Australia and Australia, captaining the national team from 1963–64 until 1967–68, and again in 1977–78. He later had a highly successful term as the coach of the Australian team...
considered him an all-rounder
All-rounder
An all-rounder is a cricketer who regularly performs well at both batting and bowling. Although all bowlers must bat and quite a few batsmen do bowl occasionally, most players are skilled in only one of the two disciplines and are considered specialists...
: he batted at number seven and bowled 26 (eight-ball) overs for the match.
Hesitant start
He retained his place for the following Test and for the tour of South Africa in summer 1966–67. Playing in a side defeated 1–3, Chappell struggled to make an impression. His highest score in ten Test innings was 49, while his five wickets cost 59 runs each. On the advice of Simpson, he ceased playing the hook shot as it was often leading to his dismissal. In the first Test of 1967–68 against India, he failed twice batting in the middle order. Heading into the second Test at Melbourne, Chappell's place was in jeopardy, but he rode his luck to score 151 — his innings contained five chances that the Indians failed to take. However, in the remainder of the series, he managed only 46 runs in four innings, so his selection for the 1968 tour of England was based as much on potential as form.In England, Chappell rewarded the faith of the selectors by scoring the most first-class runs on the tour (1,261 runs, including 202 not out against Warwickshire
Warwickshire County Cricket Club
Warwickshire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Warwickshire. Its limited overs team is called the Warwickshire Bears. Their kit colours are black and gold and the shirt sponsor...
), leading the Australian Test aggregates with 348 runs (at 43.50). His top score was 81 in the fourth Test at Leeds
Headingley Stadium
Headingley Stadium is a sporting complex in the Leeds suburb of Headingley in West Yorkshire, England. It is the home of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, rugby league team Leeds Rhinos and rugby union team Leeds Carnegie ....
. Wisden
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom...
lauded his play off the back foot and judged him the most difficult Australian batsman to dismiss. In a summer severely affected by rain, Australia drew the series and retained The Ashes
The Ashes
The Ashes is a Test cricket series played between England and Australia. It is one of the most celebrated rivalries in international cricket and dates back to 1882. It is currently played biennially, alternately in the United Kingdom and Australia. Cricket being a summer sport, and the venues...
.
Promotion to number three
A string of big scores and a record number of catches during the 1968–69 season earned Chappell the Australian Cricketer of the Year award. Against the touring West Indies, Chappell hit 188 not out, 123, 117, 180 and 165 before the New Year. Two of these centuries came in the Test series, when Chappell's average for 548 runs was 68.50. Chappell was elevated to number three in the batting order and became a less-frequent bowler; he was also appointed vice-captain of the team.Following up with a successful tour of India in late 1969, Chappell demonstrated his fluency against spin bowling by compiling Test innings of 138 at Delhi
Feroz Shah Kotla
The Feroz Shah Kotla or Kotla was originally a fortress built by Sultan Ferozshah Tughlaq to house his version of Delhi city called Ferozabad. A pristine polished sandstone pillar from the 3rd century B.C...
and 99 at Kolkata
Eden Gardens
Eden Gardens is a cricket ground in Kolkata , India. It is the home of the Bengal cricket team and the Indian Premier League's Kolkata Knight Riders, as well as being a Test and One Day International ground. It is the largest cricket stadium in India by seating capacity...
. His ability against both fast and slow bowling earned high praise, including from his captain Bill Lawry
Bill Lawry
William Morris "Bill" Lawry, AM is a former cricketer who played for Victoria and Australia. He captained Australia in 25 Tests, winning nine, losing eight and drawing eight, and led Australia in the inaugural One Day International match, played in 1971...
. When the Australians arrived in South Africa in early 1970, following their victory over India, Lawry told the local media that Chappell was the best all-round batsman in the world. His appraisal looked misguided when Chappell managed just 92 runs (at 11.5 average), with a top score of 34, as Australia lost 0–4.
On this tour, Chappell clashed with cricket administrators over pay and conditions for the first time. The South African authorities requested that an extra Test be added to the fixture and the Australian Board of Control
Cricket Australia
Cricket Australia, formerly known as the Australian Cricket Board, is the governing body for professional and amateur cricket in Australia. It was originally formed in 1905 as the Australian Board of Control for International Cricket...
consented. Incensed that the players were not consulted about the change, Chappell led a group of his teammates in a demand for more money to play the proposed game. Eventually the match was cancelled after Chappell and his supporters refused to back down.
Captaincy
Les Favell
Leslie Ernest Favell was an Australian cricketer who played in 19 Tests from 1954 to 1961. He was a strong batsman who liked to hit the ball around the ground and was a much loved character...
retired at the start of the 1970–71 season. His younger brother Greg made his debut in the second Test of the summer against Ray Illingworth's England. Facing an English attack led by the hostile fast bowling of John Snow
John Snow (cricketer)
John Augustine Snow played cricket for Sussex and England in the 1960s and 1970s. Despite being the son of a country vicar and publishing two volumes of poetry Snow was England's most formidable fast bowler between Fred Trueman and Bob Willis and played Test Matches with both of them at either end...
, Chappell scored a half-century in each of the first two Tests, but failed to capitalise on good starts while Greg Chappell scored 108 in his initial innings. Rain caused the abandonment of the third Test without a ball bowled. Temporarily promoted to open the batting, Chappell failed in the fourth Test as Australia lost. In the fifth Test at Melbourne, he returned to number three and started nervously. Dropped on 0 and 14, Chappell found form and went on to post his maiden Ashes century (111 from 212 balls), which he followed with scores of 28 and 104 in the sixth Test.
The washed-out Test resulted in a late change to the schedule and an unprecedented seventh Test was played at Sydney in February 1971. Trailing 0–1 in the series, Australia could retain The Ashes by winning this game. 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. Dismayed by the manner of Lawry's dismissal, Chappell responded with an attacking performance as captain, he won the toss, put England in and dismissed them for 184, and Australia led the first innings by 80 runs, but set 223 to win they folded for 160 and lost The Ashes
The Ashes
The Ashes is a Test cricket series played between England and Australia. It is one of the most celebrated rivalries in international cricket and dates back to 1882. It is currently played biennially, alternately in the United Kingdom and Australia. Cricket being a summer sport, and the venues...
after holding them for 12 years. Chappell gained some consolation at the end of a dramatic summer when he led SA to the Sheffield Shield, the team's first win for seven years.
Chappell's battles against the short-pitched bowling of Snow during the season compelled him to reappraise his game. Following a conversation with Sir Donald Bradman, he decided to reinstate the hook shot and spent the winter months practising the stroke by hitting baseballs thrown by his brother Greg. Although he still regularly lost his wicket after playing the shot, Chappell felt that the psychological benefit of showing aggression to opposing bowlers offset the times that he was dismissed for a low score.
A team in his own image
Australia lost an unofficial Test series 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 series, with four centuries included 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. The series began disastrously for Chappell when he was out hooking from the first ball he faced in the opening Test at Manchester. He fell the same way in the second innings and Australia lost the match. However, the team regrouped and had the better of the remaining matches, apart from the fourth Test at Leeds, played on a controversial pitch that the Australians believed was "doctored" to suit the England team. Greg Chappell emerged as a prolific 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. Australia won the game, an effort that Chappell later cited as the turning point in the team's performances.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. Pakistan "appeared probable winners of the last two Tests on the second last day of each game", yet Chappell's team managed to win on both occasions.
On indifferent pitches in the Caribbean, Chappell was the highest-scoring batsman of the Test series with 542 runs (at 77.4 average). He hit 209 in a tour match against Barbados
Barbados national cricket team
The Barbadian cricket team is the representative first class cricket team of Barbados.It does not take part in any international competitions , but rather in inter-regional competitions in the Caribbean, such as the Regional Four Day Competition and the WICB Cup, and the best players may be...
, two Test centuries and a "glorious" 97 on a poor pitch at Trinidad
Queen's Park Oval
Queen's Park Oval, in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, is currently the largest capacity cricket ground in the West Indies and has hosted more Test matches than any other ground in the Caribbean. It also hosted a number of matches in the 2007 Cricket World Cup. It is privately owned by the...
in the third Test, 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 home team collapsed against an inspired Australian bowling attack supported by Chappell's aggressive field-placements. Chappell's team would be the last to leave the West Indies as winners for 22 years.
The ugly Australians
Australia played six Tests against New Zealand on both sides of the TasmanTasman Sea
The Tasman Sea is the large body of water between Australia and New Zealand, approximately across. It extends 2,800 km from north to south. It is a south-western segment of the South Pacific Ocean. The sea was named after the Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman, the first recorded European...
in 1973–74. Chappell led his team to a 2–0 victory in the three Tests played in Australia. During the third Test at Adelaide, he equalled the world record of six catches in a Test match by a fielder, which was beaten by his brother Greg the following season. In the drawn first Test at Wellington
Basin Reserve
The Basin Reserve , is a cricket ground in Wellington, New Zealand, used for Test, first-class and one-day cricket. Some argue that its proximity to the city, its Historic Place status and its age make it the most famous cricket ground in New Zealand...
, the Chappells became the first brothers to each score a century in both innings of a Test match. The Australians lost to the Kiwis for the first time ever in the second Test at Christchurch, when Chappell was involved in a verbal confrontation with the leading New Zealand batsman, Glenn Turner
Glenn Turner
Glenn Maitland Turner played cricket for New Zealand and was one of the country's best and most prolific batsmen. He is the current head of the New Zealand Cricket selection panel....
. The Australians then played an ill-tempered tour match at Dunedin
Carisbrook
Carisbrook was a major sporting venue in Dunedin, New Zealand. The city's main domestic and international rugby union venue, it has also been used for other sports such as cricket, football, rugby league and motocross. Carisbrook has also hosted a Joe Cocker concert and frequently hosted pre-game...
that didn't enhance the reputation of Chappell or his team, before winning the final Test at Auckland
Eden Park
Eden Park is the biggest stadium in Auckland, New Zealand. It is used primarily for rugby union in winter and cricket in summer . The ground also occasionally hostts rugby league matches. To accommodate all three sports, the cricket pitch is removable...
. On this tour, the behaviour of the team was questioned with some journalists labelling them "ugly Australians". In 1976, Chappell wrote about his attitude to the opposition:
... 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 increasing prevalence of verbal confrontation on the field (later known as sledging
Sledging (cricket)
Sledging is a term used in cricket to describe the practice whereby some players seek to gain an advantage by insulting or verbally intimidating the opposing player. The purpose is to try to weaken the opponent's concentration, thereby causing him to make mistakes or underperform...
) concerned cricket administrators and became a regular topic for the media. Its instigation is sometimes attributed to Chappell. By his own admission, he was a frequent user of profanity who was often at “boiling point” on the field, but claims that the various incidents he was involved in were not a premeditated tactic. Rather, they were a case of him losing his temper with an opponent. Sledging continues to cause controversy in the game; when the Australian team is involved, the phrase “ugly Australians” is still invoked in relation to the issue.
The Ashes regained and the first World Cup
Dennis Lillee
Dennis Keith Lillee, AM, MBE is a former Australian cricketer rated as the "outstanding fast bowler of his generation"...
and Jeff Thomson
Jeff Thomson
Jeffrey Robert Thomson is a former Australian cricketer. Known as "Thommo", he was one of the fastest bowlers ever to play Test cricket and was the opening partner of fellow fast bowler Dennis Lillee; their combination was one of the most fearsome in Test cricket history...
, the Australians played aggressive cricket and received criticism for the amount of short-pitched
Bouncer (cricket)
In the sport of cricket, a bouncer is a type of delivery, usually bowled by a fast bowler. It is pitched short so that it bounces on the pitch well short of the batsman and rears up to chest or head height as it reaches the batsman.Bouncers are used tactically to drive the batsman back on to his...
bowling they employed. Chappell scored 90 on an "unreliable" pitch on the first day of the opening Test at Brisbane. He finished the six Tests with 387 runs at 35.18 average, and took 11 catches in the slips. The Test matches attracted big crowds and record gate takings, enabling Chappell to negotiate a bonus for the players from the Australian Cricket Board
Cricket Australia
Cricket Australia, formerly known as the Australian Cricket Board, is the governing body for professional and amateur cricket in Australia. It was originally formed in 1905 as the Australian Board of Control for International Cricket...
(ACB). Although this more than doubled the players' pay, their remuneration amounted to only 4.5% of the revenue generated by the series.
Within months, Chappell was back in England leading Australia in the inaugural World Cup
1975 Cricket World Cup
-Group B:-Knockout stage:-Semifinals:In the best World Cup performance to date by a bowler, Gary Gilmour took six wickets as England were bowled all out for 93 , after falling to 37/7...
. His dislike of the defensive nature of limited-over cricket led to the Australians placing a full slips cordon for the new ball and employing Test-match style tactics in the tournament. Despite the apparent unsuitability of this approach, Chappell guided the team to the final where they lost a memorable match to the West Indies.
The workload of the captaincy was telling on Chappell and the four-Test Ashes series that followed the World Cup dampened his appetite for the game. After winning the only completed match of the series, the first Test at Birmingham
Edgbaston Cricket Ground
Edgbaston Cricket Ground, also known as the County Ground or Edgbaston Stadium, is a cricket ground in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham, England...
, Australia’s retention of the Ashes was anti-climactic: the third Test at Leeds was abandoned due to vandalism of the pitch during the night before the last day’s play. In the last Test at the Oval, Chappell scored 192 from 367 balls to set up an apparent victory. However, England managed to bat for almost 15 hours to grind out a draw and Chappell announced his resignation from the captaincy on the final day of the match. In 30 Tests as captain, he scored 2,550 runs at an average of 50, with seven centuries.
First retirement
Remaining available for Test cricket, he played in 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, claiming the unofficial title of best team in the world. During the season, Chappell incurred censure for his behaviour in a Sheffield Shield match and was warned not to continue wearing a pair of AdidasAdidas
Adidas AG is a German sports apparel manufacturer and parent company of the Adidas Group, which consists of the Reebok sportswear company, TaylorMade-Adidas golf company , and Rockport...
boots with the three stripes clearly visible. This breached the prevailing protocol of cricketers wearing all white. His highest innings of the summer was 156 during Australia's only loss, at Perth
WACA Ground
The WACA is a sports stadium in Perth, Western Australia. WACA are the initials of its owners and operators, the Western Australian Cricket Association....
in the second Test. Wisden nominated him as the most influential player of the series for his 449 runs at an average of 44.90. Throughout the course of the series, Chappell passed two significant milestones when he became the fourth Australian to make 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 in the domestic competition. During a dispute with the SACA
South Australian Cricket Association
The South Australian Cricket Association is the peak body for the sport of cricket in South Australia. The association runs Adelaide Oval and the Southern Redbacks based in Adelaide, South Australia. SACA is the controlling body for the South Australian Grade Cricket League...
over team selection, he threatened a "strike" action by the SA team. After the matter was resolved, Chappell led the side to the Sheffield Shield title for the second time in his career and shared the inaugural Sheffield Shield player of the season award with his brother Greg. He retired from first-class cricket at the end of the season, aged only 32.
World Series Cricket and aftermath
In 1976, Chappell toured South Africa with Richie Benaud's International Wanderers team, released his autobiography Chappelli and was named as one of five Wisden Cricketers of the YearWisden Cricketers of the Year
The Wisden Cricketers of the Year are cricketers selected for the honour by the annual publication Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, based primarily on their "influence on the previous English season"...
. He was hired to spend the summer of 1976–77 as a guest professional in the Melbourne district competition
Victorian Premier Cricket
Victorian Premier Cricket is the elite club cricket competition in the state of Victoria, administered by Cricket Victoria. Each club fields four teams of adult players and usually play on weekends and public holidays. Matches are played on turf wickets under limited-time rules, with most results...
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
Ian Botham
Sir Ian Terence Botham OBE is a former England Test cricketer and Test team captain, and current cricket commentator. He was a genuine all-rounder with 14 centuries and 383 wickets in Test cricket, and remains well-known by his nickname "Beefy"...
. Both men have put forward vastly different versions as to what happened during the physical confrontation in a Melbourne pub. The animosity between them continues and Channel Nine
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
used it as a marketing ploy when Botham temporarily partnered Chappell as a television commentator during the 1998–99 season. Botham again revived the feud in his 2007 autobiography with another version of the incident.
Rebel skipper
Throughout his career, Chappell found the ACB obdurate in his attempts to make a living from the game. In 1969 and 1970, they refused his applications to play professionally in England. As Australian captain, he made several unsuccessful representations at ACB meetings in an effort to secure a more realistic financial deal for the Australian players. In consultations with the then-president of the ACTUAustralian Council of Trade Unions
The Australian Council of Trade Unions is the largest peak body representing workers in Australia. It is a national trade union centre of 46 affiliated unions.-History:The ACTU was formed in 1927 as the "Australian Council of Trade Unions"...
, Bob Hawke
Bob Hawke
Robert James Lee "Bob" Hawke AC GCL was the 23rd Prime Minister of Australia from March 1983 to December 1991 and therefore longest serving Australian Labor Party Prime Minister....
, he explored the possibility of unionising the players.
Approached to lead an Australian team in World Series Cricket
World Series Cricket
World Series Cricket was a break away professional cricket competition staged between 1977 and 1979 and organised by Kerry Packer for his Australian television network, Nine Network. The matches ran in opposition to established international cricket...
(WSC), a breakaway professional competition organised by Kerry Packer
Kerry Packer
Kerry Francis Bullmore Packer, AC was an Australian media tycoon. The son of Sir Frank Packer and Gretel Bullmore, the Packer family company owned controlling interest in both the Nine television network and leading Australian publishing company Australian Consolidated Press, which were later...
for Channel Nine, Chappell signed a three-year contract worth A$75,000 in 1976. His participation was, "fundamental to the credibility of the enterprise". Chappell devised the list of Australian players to be signed, and was involved in the organisation and marketing of WSC. His central role was the result of, "years of personal disaffection with cricket officialdom", in particular Don Bradman. Recently, Chappell wrote:
While captaining Australia, I was approached on three separate occasions before WSC to play 'professional' cricket, and each time I advised the entrepreneurs to meet the appropriate cricket board because they controlled the grounds. On each occasion, the administrators sent the entrepreneurs packing and it quickly became clear they weren't interested in a better deal for the players.
That's why I say the players didn't stab the ACB in the back. The administrators had numerous opportunities to reach a compromise but displayed little interest in the welfare of the players. It wasn't really surprising then that more than 50 players from around the world signed lucrative WSC contracts and a revolution was born. About half of the WSC players were from Australia and this high ratio can, in part, be attributed to Bradman's tight-fisted approach to the ACB's money.
In WSC's debut season of 1977–78, Chappell hit the first Supertest century and finished fifth in overall averages. The prevalence of short-pitched fast bowling and a serious injury to Australian David Hookes
David Hookes
David William Hookes was an Australian cricketer, broadcaster and coach of the Victorian cricket team. An aggressive left-handed batsman, Hookes usually batted in the middle order...
led to the innovation of batting helmets; Chappell was one of the many batsmen to use one. Following their 1975–76 tour of Australia, the West Indies adopted a four-man fast bowling attack, while the World XI contained fast bowlers of the calibre of Imran Khan
Imran Khan
Imran Khan Niazi is a Pakistani politician and former Pakistani cricketer, playing international cricket for two decades in the late twentieth century. After retiring, he entered politics...
, Mike Procter
Mike Procter
Michael John Procter is a former South African cricketer. A fast bowler and hard hitting batsman, his chances for a long and productive test career were wrecked by South Africa's banishment from world cricket in the 1970s and 1980s...
, Garth Le Roux
Garth Le Roux
Garth Stirling Le Roux in Kenilworth, Cape Town is a former South African first class cricketer. He went to Wynberg Boys High School, graduating in 1973....
, Clive Rice
Clive Rice
Clive Edward Butler Rice is a former South African international cricketer. An all-rounder, Rice ended his first class cricket career with a batting average of 40.95 and a bowling average of 22.49....
and Sarfraz Nawaz
Sarfraz Nawaz
Sarfraz Nawaz Malik is a former Pakistani Test cricketer and politician who discovered reverse swing and was instrumental in Pakistan's first Test series victories over India and England. Between 1969 and 1984 he played 55 Tests and 45 One Day Internationals and was Imran Khan's regular new ball...
. The constant diet of pace bowling undermined the confidence of some batsmen during WSC. Chappell’s form fell away during the second season and he scored only 181 runs at 25.85 in four Supertests. During the last six days of the season, the WSC Australians lost the finals of both the limited-overs competition (to the West Indies XI) and the Supertest series (to the World XI), thus forfeiting the winner-takes-all prize money. After the latter match, Chappell vented his frustrations on World XI captain Tony Greig
Tony Greig
Anthony "Tony" William Greig is a former English Test cricketer and currently a commentator.Born in Queenstown, South Africa, Greig qualified to play for England by virtue of his Scottish father. He was a tall batting all-rounder who bowled both medium pace and off spin. He became captain of the...
by refusing to shake his hand and criticising Greig’s inconsequential contribution to his team’s victory. The final act of the competition was a series between the WSC Australians and the WSC West Indies played in the Caribbean in the spring of 1979. After the Australians suffered a heavy defeat in the first Supertest at Jamaica
Sabina Park
Sabina Park is the home of the Kingston Cricket Club, and is the only Test cricket ground in Kingston, Jamaica and is often referred to as "The Holiday Home of Cricket"....
, Chappell rallied his team to draw the five match series one-all. His best effort were scores of 61 and 86 at Barbados
Kensington Oval
The Kensington Oval is located to the west of the capital-city Bridgetown on the island of Barbados. "The Oval" is one of the major sporting facilities on the island and is primarily used for cricket...
.
Return to Tests
Convinced to return to official cricket when WSC ended, Chappell resumed as captain of SA in 1979–80, a decision he later regretted. It was a season too far for the increasingly irascible Chappell. Reported by an umpire for swearing in a match against Tasmania, he received a three-week suspension. In his first match after the ban, he was again reported for his conduct in a game against the touring English team. Given a suspended ban by the ACB, he was then selected for Australia's last three Tests of the season. His Test career finished with scores of 75 and 26 not out at the MCGMelbourne Cricket Ground
The Melbourne Cricket Ground is an Australian sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne and is home to the Melbourne Cricket Club. It is the tenth largest stadium in the world, the largest in Australia, the largest stadium for playing cricket, and holds the world record for the highest light...
against England in February 1980. In his final first-class match, SA needed to beat Victoria to win the Sheffield Shield. Although Chappell scored 112, SA lost the match and the shield. Ironically, the umpires voted him the competition's player of the season for a second time.
ODI record
Chappell’s aggressive approach suited limited-overs cricket: he scored his runs at a strike-rate of 77 runs per hundred balls. The timing of his career limited him to 16 ODI matches, but he appeared in a number of historic fixtures such as the first ODI (at the MCG in 1971), the first World Cup final (at Lord’s in 1975) and the first day/night match (during WSC, at VFL ParkWaverley Park
Waverley Park was an Australian rules football stadium in Mulgrave, Victoria, Australia. For most of its history, its purpose was as a neutral venue and used by all Victorian based Victorian Football League/Australian Football League clubs. However, during the 1990s it became the home ground of...
in 1978). He passed fifty in half of his innings with a top score of 86 at Christchurch in 1973–74. In his final season of international cricket, he scored 63 not out (from 65 balls) against the West Indies at the SCG to win the player of the match award; five days later he hit an unbeaten 60 from 50 balls in his penultimate ODI appearance, against England. As captain, he recorded six wins and five losses from 11 matches.
Captaincy statistics
| 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 | 2 | 0 | 3 |
| 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 | 15 | 5 | 10 | |
| 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 | 19 | 14 | 16 |
Legacy
The title of the ABC'sAustralian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
documentary The Chappell Era, broadcast in 2002, encapsulated Chappell's significance to Australian cricket. Subtitled Cricket in the '70s, it chronicled the rise of the Australian cricket team under Chappell, the fight for better pay for the players, and professionalisation of the game through WSC. During the program, Chappell reiterated his criticisms of cricket's administration at the time.
In Wisden, Richie Benaud wrote, "Chappell will be remembered as much for his bid to improve the players' lot as he will for his run-getting and captaincy". During the WSC period, he founded a players' association with a loan provided by Kerry Packer. Despite Chappell's continued support for the organisation after his retirement, apathy and a lack of recognition from the ACB led to its demise in 1988. Revived in 1997 as the Australian Cricketers' Association
Australian Cricketers' Association
The Australian Cricketers’ Association is an organisation that represents the professional first-class cricketers of Australia, both past and present. It is not a formally registered Trade Union, but an Incorporated Association...
(ACA), it is now an important organisation within the structure of Australian cricket. In 2005, Chappell became a member of the ACA executive.
Chappell was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1986, the FICA
Federation of International Cricketers' Associations
The Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations is an organisation that co-ordinates the activities of all the national players’ associations that represent professional cricketers...
Cricket Hall of Fame in 2000 and the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame
Australian Cricket Hall of Fame
The Australian Cricket Hall of Fame is a part of the Australian Gallery of Sport and Olympic Museum in the National Sports Museum at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. This Hall of Fame commemorates the greatest Australian cricketers of all time....
in 2003. Two new grandstands at the Adelaide Oval were named the Chappell Stands; at the dedication ceremony in 2003, the SACA president Ian McLachlan
Ian McLachlan
Ian Murray McLachlan AO is an Australian landowner, former first-class cricketer, and former member of the Australian House of Representatives.-Early life:...
called the Chappells, "the most famous cricketing family in South Australia". In 2004, the Chappell family was again honoured with the creation of the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy
Chappell-Hadlee Trophy
The Chappell-Hadlee Trophy in cricket is an annual ODI series between Australia and New Zealand. It is named after legendary cricketing families from the two countries, the Chappell brothers of Australia and Walter Hadlee and his three sons, , of New Zealand.The trophy is currently held by...
, an annual series of ODI matches played between Australia and New Zealand.
Chappell is the leading advocate for greater formal recognition of the first Australian sporting team to travel overseas, the Australian Aboriginal cricket team in England in 1868.
Media career
Following the path of his grandfather Vic Richardson, who was a radio commentator for many years, Chappell entered the media in 1973 by writing ghosted magazine articles and a column for The AgeThe Age
The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...
. He did television commentary for the 0–10 Network
Network Ten
Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country...
and the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
before playing WSC. During the 1980s, Chappell spent eight years co-hosting with Mike Gibson, Wide World of Sports
Nine's Wide World of Sport
Nine's Wide World of Sports is a long-running sports anthology brand on Australian television, aired on the Nine Network. All major sports, events and series covered by the network are broadcast under this brand, the flagship sports being rugby league , cricket , spring and autumn horse racing,...
, an innovative magazine-style program broadcast by Channel Nine on Saturday afternoons and co-hosted a sister show, Sports Sunday, for five years. Early in his stint on the former program, he swore without realising that he was live to air. A similar incident occurred during a live telecast of the 1993 Ashes series. Channel Nine suspended him on both occasions.
Leadership critiques
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 IncidentUnderarm bowling incident of 1981
The underarm bowling incident of 1981 took place on 1 February 1981, when Australia was playing New Zealand in a One Day International cricket match, the third of five such matches in the final of the Benson & Hedges World Series Cup, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground...
, which involved his two younger brothers in an ODI played between Australia and New Zealand at the MCG
Melbourne Cricket Ground
The Melbourne Cricket Ground is an Australian sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne and is home to the Melbourne Cricket Club. It is the tenth largest stadium in the world, the largest in Australia, the largest stadium for playing cricket, and holds the world record for the highest light...
. Chappell showed no fraternal bias and was vehement in his criticism of his brother Greg's tactic. He wrote in a newspaper column on the matter: "Fair dinkum, Greg, how much pride do you sacrifice to win $35,000?"
He supported the claims of Rod Marsh
Rod Marsh
Rodney William Marsh MBE is a former Australian wicketkeeper.A colourful character, Marsh had a Test career spanning from the 1970–71 to the 1983–84 Australian season. In 96 Tests, he set a world record of 355 wicketkeeping dismissals, the same number his pace bowling Western...
to the Australian captaincy over the incumbent, Kim Hughes
Kim Hughes
Kimberley John Hughes is a former cricketer who played for Western Australia, Natal and Australia. He captained Australia in 28 Tests between 1979 and 1984 before captaining a "rebel" Australian team in a tour of South Africa, who at the time were subject to a sporting boycott.A right-handed...
, in the early 1980s. The constant campaign against Hughes destabilised his authority. Compounding the situation, the ACB compelled Hughes to be interviewed by Chappell on a regular basis. When Hughes resigned in 1984, throwing Australian cricket into turmoil, Chappell received a share of the blame for the outcome.
Chappell had a direct influence on Hughes’ successor, Allan Border
Allan Border
Allan Robert Border AO is a former Australian cricketer. A batsman, Border was for many years the captain of the Australian team. His playing nickname was "A.B.". He played 156 Test matches in his career, a record until it was passed by fellow Australian Steve Waugh...
. Early in his captaincy tenure, Border was struggling with the burdens of the position so the ACB appointed Bob Simpson as team coach to assist. This led to animosity between Chappell and Simpson as Chappell derided the need for a coach. Simpson responded by writing that the peer influence of older players helping younger players fell away during the era when the Chappell brothers led the team, and he was redressing the problem. Chappell believed that the Border-Simpson leadership was too defensive and that Simpson usurped too much of Border's control of the team; Border heeded Chappell’s assessment and adopted a more aggressive on-field approach later in his career. Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor (cricketer)
Mark Anthony Taylor, AO is a former Australian cricket player and Test opening batsman from 1988–1999, as well as captain from 1994–1999, succeeding Allan Border...
, who captained the team after Border, moved to dilute Simpson's authority. Chappell remains a long-standing critic of the use of coaches by national teams.
Books and writings
Ashley Mallett'sAshley Mallett
Ashley Alexander Mallett is a former Australian cricketer who played in 38 Tests and 9 One Day Internationals between 1968 and 1980...
biography, Chappelli Speaks Out (published in the UK as Hitting Out — the Ian Chappell Story) was written in collaboration with Chappell and released in 2005. It caused controversy due to Chappell’s assessment of Steve Waugh
Steve Waugh
Stephen Rodger "Steve" Waugh, AO is a former Australian cricketer and fraternal twin of cricketer Mark Waugh. A right-handed batsman, he was also a successful medium-pace bowler...
, who he described as “selfish” and as a captain, “ran out of ideas very quickly”. Waugh responded by writing, “to say Chappell's criticism irked me would be an understatement.” He categorised the criticisms as "personal" and noted that Chappell, “always sweated on my blunders and reported them with an 'I told you so' mentality”. Chappell's first book was an account of the 1972 Ashes tour, Tigers Among the Lions, followed by a series of books of cricketing humour and anecdotes published in the early 1980s. The more analytical The Cutting Edge, an appraisal of modern cricket, appeared in 1992. In 2006, Chappell released an anthology of his cricket writings entitled A Golden Age. He is a regular contributor to Cricinfo.com.
Personal life
After leaving school, Chappell spent two years as a clerk in a sharebroker's office, which he left to play league cricket in England. He then worked as a promotions representative for NestleNestlé
Nestlé S.A. is the world's largest food and nutrition company. Founded and headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland, Nestlé originated in a 1905 merger of the Anglo-Swiss Milk Company, established in 1867 by brothers George Page and Charles Page, and Farine Lactée Henri Nestlé, founded in 1866 by Henri...
and, later, the cigarette manufacturer WD & HO Wills
WD & HO Wills Holdings
WD & HO Wills Holdings Limited is an Australian tobacco manufacturer controlled by BAT Australia Pty Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of British American Tobacco PLC.Its cigarette brands include:*Benson & Hedges...
. 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 his second wife Barbara-Ann. In recent years, Chappell has been a high-profile activist for better treatment of asylum seekers by the Australian government, in particular its policy of mandatory detention
Mandatory detention in Australia
Mandatory detention in Australia concerns the Australian federal government's policy and system of mandatory immigration detention active from 1992 to date, pursuant to which all persons entering the country without a valid visa are compulsorily detained and sometimes subject to deportation.In the...
.