59 Facts About Ian Chappell

Ian Michael Chappell was born on 26 September 1943 and is a former cricketer who played for South Australia and Australia.

Ian Chappell captained Australia between 1971 and 1975 before taking a central role in the breakaway World Series Cricket organisation.

Ian Chappell found his niche when promoted to bat at number three.

Ian Chappell 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".

Ian Chappell remains a key 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.

The first of four sons born in Unley, near Adelaide, to Martin and Jeanne, Chappell was steeped in the game from an early age.

Ian Chappell's 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 famous all-round sportsman Vic Richardson, who captained Australia at the end of a nineteen-Test career.

Ian 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.

Ian 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.

Ian Chappell was later selected for the South Australian state schoolboys team.

Ian Chappell 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.

Ian Chappell's other sporting pursuits included Australian football and baseball: Chappell's performances for South Australia in the Claxton Shield won him All-Australian selection in 1964 and 1966 as a catcher.

Ian 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 against Cambridge University.

Ian Chappell was the youngest member of the SA team that won the Sheffield Shield that season.

In England, Chappell rewarded the faith of the selectors by scoring the most first-class runs on the tour, leading the Australian Test aggregates with 348 runs.

Ian Chappell was elevated to number three in the batting order and became a less-frequent bowler; he was appointed vice-captain of the team.

On this tour, Ian Chappell clashed with cricket administrators over pay and conditions for the first time.

Temporarily promoted to open the batting, Ian Chappell failed in the fourth Test as Australia lost.

Ian 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.

Ian Chappell was the outstanding batsman of the series, with four centuries included in his 634 runs, at an average of 79.25.

Ian Chappell fell the same way in the second innings and Australia lost the match.

Greg Ian Chappell emerged as a prolific batsman during the series, batting one place below his brother in the order.

Australia won the game, an effort that Ian Chappell later cited as the turning point in the team's performances.

Ian Chappell hit his highest Test score of 196 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 Ian Chappell's team managed to win on both occasions.

On indifferent pitches in the Caribbean, Ian Chappell was the highest-scoring batsman of the Test series with 542 runs.

Ian Chappell 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.

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.

In 1976, Ian Chappell wrote about his attitude to the opposition:.

Ian Chappell scored 90 on an "unreliable" pitch on the first day of the opening Test at Brisbane.

Ian Chappell 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.

However, England managed to bat for almost 15 hours to grind out a draw and Ian Chappell announced his resignation from the captaincy on the final day of the match.

Ian Chappell retired from first-class cricket at the end of the season, aged only 32.

Ian Chappell's participation was, "fundamental to the credibility of the enterprise".

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.

Ian Chappell's form fell away during the second season and he scored only 181 runs at 25.85 in four Supertests.

Ian Chappell is credited to have hit the first ever six in an ODI match.

In Wisden, Richie Benaud wrote, "Ian Chappell will be remembered as much for his bid to improve the players' lot as he will for his run-getting and captaincy".

In 2005, Ian Chappell became a member of the ACA executive.

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".

Ian Chappell became a radio commentator for the Macquarie Sports Radio in 2018.

Ian Chappell later moved to ABC Radio before retiring in August 2022.

Ian Chappell showed no fraternal bias and was vehement in his criticism of his brother Greg's tactic.

Ian Chappell supported the claims of Rod Marsh to the Australian captaincy over the incumbent, Kim Hughes, in the early 1980s.

Ian Chappell is not doing this and his inconsistency is rubbing off on others.

Ian Chappell had a direct influence on Hughes' successor, Allan Border.

Simpson responded by writing that the peer influence of older players helping younger players fell away during the era when the Ian Chappell brothers led the team, and he was redressing the problem.

Ian 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 Ian Chappell's assessment and adopted a more aggressive on-field approach later in his career and became known as "Captain Grumpy" to his teammates.

Ian Chappell remains a long-standing critic of the use of coaches by national teams.

Ian Chappell was often critical of Steve Waugh as captain, believing him to be a selfish player and unimaginative captain.

Ian Chappell felt Shane Warne should have been picked as captain instead and his criticism of Waugh's captaincy did not abate during Waugh's stint in that role, despite his success.

Ian Chappell worked with Matt Vasgersian and former Cy Young Award winner John Smoltz.

Ian 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.

In 2006, Ian Chappell released an anthology of his cricket writings entitled A Golden Age.

Ian Chappell is twice married, and has a daughter with his first wife Kay.

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.

In July 2019, Ian Chappell announced that he had been undergoing radiotherapy for skin cancer.