Famouos Cricketers No 92 - Ian Chappell

been the star of the South Australian team that summer, but he had to leave before the end of the season to take part in the West Indies home series against India, leaving more opportunity for Chappell. In 1963 he was recommended to Ramsbottom by the former Australian Test player Arthur Richardson – no relation – but found the wickets ‘appalling’ and concluded the experience did little for his game. He gave up leg spin on the club wickets, concentrating on medium pace. On his return to Australia he worked for Nestles as a rep, and then for the tobacco company W.D. and H.O.Wills. He spent eight years with them before deciding to work for himself. The 1963/64 season saw him score 205 against Queensland, a Shield score which got him talked about as a possible for the 1964 Australian tour of England. His Test debut came the following season in a one-off match against Pakistan on his home ground at Adelaide, but he did not do enough to win a place on the tour to West Indies in the spring of 1965. He was recalled after England defeated Australia by an innings in the Third Test at Sydney in 1965/66, chosen along with another batsman-leg spinner, the Victorian Keith Stackpole, who was to be alongside him during most of the highlights and lowlights of his Test career. They had little to do as a double century from skipper Bobby Simpson and a century from Bill Lawry set up Australia to turn the tables and complete an innings victory themselves. In the final Test at the MCG the pair had to play second fiddle to the triple century from Bob Cowper. Chappell had played baseball for South Australia from 1964/65, and always regarded baseball disciplines as advantageous in teaching cricketers how to control cross-bat strokes. He gave up when he and Stackpole were chosen to tour South Africa in 1966/67, a series South Africa won 3-1. Neither passed 50 in a poor series for Australian batting, but Chappell was tried out at first wicket down in the final Test. More low scores followed against India in 1967/68, but he got in and made 151 at the MCG. “It was an innings that almost certainly saved my bacon as an international cricketer,” he admitted himself. It got him to England in 1968 in a team captained by Bill Lawry. It was an Australian team reckoned to be top heavy with inexperienced batsmen: Chappell, Walters, Sheahan, Joslin and Inverarity. Stackpole had fallen out of favour, a fate which could just as easily have befallen Chappell. In fact Chappell was the only one to come to terms with a wet summer. Walters and Sheehan prospered early on but fell away as Underwood began to dominate the series. Chappell moved from number six to number four and scored 65 and 81 in the Fourth Test at Headingley, an achievement overshadowed for him by acting captain Barry Jarman’s failure to push for victory. In the Ian Chappell view of the universe cricket was a game of challenge and counter-challenge and safety first had no place. His first chance to give his views an official hearing came in the Fifth Test of 1968/69 when he was appointed vice-captain to Lawry when Jarman was replaced as wicket-keeper by Brian Taber. By then, though, there was little need for subtle tactics against a West Indies team which had been buried beneath an avalanche of Australian runs, many of them Chappell’s. Every time they played he seemed to score another century. He was vice-captain under Lawry for the 1969/70 tour, originally planned as a trip to India and Pakistan, but when the Pakistan leg was called off an extra series of four Tests in South Africa was added on. After three months in India, often in makeshift accommodation, the players were worn out and it showed in their performance, though none should decry the performance of the greatest South 4