Greg Chappell, born August 7, 1948, was a visual delight when in full flow, a graceful, elegant batsman, the toughest of competitors and one of the more combative and controversial characters of the game.Arunabha Sengupta looks back at the life and career of the man who is perhaps the greatest Australian batsman between Don Bradman and Steve Smith.
The Bradman influence
He was born just 11 days before the world witnessed the sun set on cricket’s most glorious career. On August 18, 1948, Don Bradman’s supreme and unparalleled Test career came to an end. On August 7, a second son was born to Martin and Jeanne Chappell. The mother was the daughter of South Australia’s greatest all-round sportsman Vic Richardson, a former teammate of Bradman and not really one of the best buddies of the greatest ever batsman.
Some three and a half decades later, this new-born was destined to go past Bradman’s tally of Test runs in his 87th and final Test appearance. He was to become the greatest Australian batsman since the legend, an epithet that arguably holds true to this day.
The Don himself, not always enjoying the best of terms with the younger man, rejoiced when Greg Chappell went past his aggregate and became the first Australian to score 7,000 Test runs: “He is a worthy holder of the honour, because for many years he has been Australia’s premier batsman and his runs were made with an aesthetic imperious quality which few others in history could emulate. I can take some pride at this time that I was chairman of the selection committee which picked him to play for Australia.”
Bradman’s influence in Chappell’s career was more than just astute selection. Although there was a severe fall out during the days leading to Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket, the great man had played a subtle yet significant role in the development of the young batsman.
In the summer of 1965, Greg Chappell had shot up three inches, becoming the tall, thin figure that was to stride across the cricket grounds for the next two decades. With sudden growth, the leg-spin he bowled during his young days had lost its loop and bounce — gradually giving way to some useful medium pace. However, he had begun to score heavily in school cricket. While hitting a century in his last school game, he was watched by the great man who suggested to school coach Chester Bennett that the lad ought to stop hitting off-side balls wide of mid-on. The coach, not in favour of tampering with the natural style, did not pass the message.
Then two years later, in December 1967, Chappell played for South Australia against the visiting Indians. The young batsman was shadow-batting in the doorway of the dressing room when Bradman walked out after enjoying tea with the players. Walking past the eighteen-year-old after exchanging cursory greetings, the legend paused to remark almost as an afterthought, “I’d change the grip if I were you… the grip I had used to work pretty well.” When asked about the details, Bradman told him to look it up in his book The Art of Cricket. The youngster summoned enough nerve to say, “Well, you’re here, so maybe you can show me.” So Sir Donald Bradman demonstrated the famed grip with the vees down the back of the bat. “You’ll find it uncomfortable because you haven’t used it before, but it’ll help with your off-side play.” And just as he was walking away, he turned and said, “By the way, I gave this advice to one other player. He didn’t take it and he’s no longer in the side.”
Chappell used the grip that day and scored 55. He went on to use it score all his 7,110 Test runs without reverting back to his old way of holding the bat.
A study in similarity and contrasts
Yet, there styles of the two greatest Australian batsmen were distinctly different. The stocky Bradman’s mindboggling consistency and that freakish average were built on an unorthodox technique, unerring in its execution and a dominance that was both absolute and unrelenting. The tall, graceful Chappell on the other hand was a picture of sublime aesthetics sculpted on the solid foundation of orthodox perfection of methods. His on-drive was the classiest sight in cricket, and even when he played the hook, a stroke normally associated with ferocity and force, he laced it with a touch of artistic elegance. He was masterly and intense but without reaching the superhuman domains of metronomic run-making associated with Bradman.
There were similarities in their characters — albeit many subsequent differences in their opinions. Both were solitary, secluded individuals, often introverted, zealous of their privacy and family lives. For both of them, there was a degree of self-sufficiency that bordered on insularity. Neither was fascinated by tours to exotic places. Bradman played only in England and Australia. The only country apart from England that Chappell toured twice was New Zealand, playing only five Tests in West Indies, three in Pakistan, one in Sri Lanka and none in India.
But again, at some point, the two great cricketing minds diverged in distinct paths. In the words of Frank Tyson: “Bradman personified Prince Hal of batting. He was jauntily cocksure of his next sporting Agincourt and forever imitating the sun in his brilliant assurance. Greg Chappell was more the Hamlet of the game: he brooded, like the gloomy Dane, about the responsibilities that often weighed heavily on his bat and shoulders, and though he never doubted that he was born to command, he seemed at times assailed by inner anxieties and doubts.”
Yes, anxiety and stress dogged him all through his career from 1975-76 when donned the mantle of captaincy. He remained fighting to find a balance between his roles as a batsman, captain, husband, father and businessman. Added to these were crowded schedules, unsympathetic administrators, Bradman among them, and, what was perceived by him and many of his teammates, insufficient pay. Sometimes these led to loss of concentration and form, and opting out of tours. At least once it led to a bizarre, deplorable and often condemned decision. But, seldom did his career graph trace anything but the most glorious peaks of high. And till his last day, even as plenty of fans criticised many aspects of his approach and sportsmanship, no one could deny that Greg Chappell in full flow was a joy to behold, one of the best sights in cricket.
Runs in the family
He could not have been born in a family more steeped into sports. Grandfather Vic had been a Test captain, and also played top-level baseball, tennis, lacrosse, Australian football and golf. Father Martin was an accomplished player in Adelaide club cricket and played baseball as well. By the time Greg Chappell was born, brother Ian was impatiently waiting for someone to run in and bowl to him in the backyard. By the time he was four, he possessed a red-handled cut-down Dunlop-Crockett cricket bat. At dinner, salt and pepper were not passed, they were flicked at full tilt to test the reflexes around the table.
The technique was developed under the patient tutelage of Glenelg club coach Lyn Fuller, but equally important were the hours and hours put into the backyard ‘Tests’. The games between Ian and Greg Chappell seldom overflowed with fraternal affection. The balls were often fast and rearing at the body. Arguments were more the norm than exception. With time the third brother, Trevor, made his way into these games. Once Greg was chased around the backyard by Trevor armed with a tomahawk, in a rather extreme effort to overturn a decision.
There were a few interim years when Trevor was not old enough to play and Ian was already away playing serious cricket. During this phase, Greg Chappell devised games of throwing golf balls against the wall and catching the rebounds, and innovative variants of the same. This perhaps lends a peep into the development of the supreme slip fieldsman who would end his career with the highest number of catches in Tests.
The Chappell brothers also played a lot of high quality baseball in the winter, and perhaps the art of sledging was given a boost by the extensive vocabulary picked up in this rather more boisterously vocal sport played in front of sparser crowds.
First-Class forays
Chappell made his debut for South Australia in 1966-67, against Victoria. He played with tonsil infection and a stiff neck, and when he approached captain Les Favell to confess about his physical problems, he was informed: “I don’t want to hear anything about it unless you’re telling me you can’t play. You’re either fit or you’re not.” Chappell scored a fifty on First-Class debut, a feat matched by brothers Ian and Trevor as well as grandpa Vic.
Glory followed soon, and along with it another valuable lesson from the captain. Against Queensland, Chappell came in at 22 for three, and saw the side collapse to 77 for seven. He staged a recovery, scoring 104 on a wicket on which no batsman from either side scored more than 51. In his excitement, he skied a catch to deep mid-wicket after reaching his hundred. Favell greeted the jubilant batsman with the words, “Be thankful your name’s Chappell, not Favell. Getting out like that!”
It was later in the season that Chappell’s sheen of talent became distinctly visible past the rough edges of first youth. He came to the wicket at 29 for five against a Western Australia attack boasting Graham McKenzie and Tony Lock, and struck a classical 154.
At the end of the Australian summer, Chappell was signed on by Somerset to play county cricket in England. It was invaluable education which would stand him in excellent stead during his later visits to the country as a Test cricketer. However, he did not quite feel at home in the northern summers. The attitude of the professional cricketers jarred with his concept of the game. Six days of cricket per week produced a workaday attitude. “Having grown up with dressing room and bar conversations in Australia that were all about making runs faster and bowling the opposition out quicker, I was shocked in England where it was ‘How can I not get out?’ and ‘How can I stop them scoring runs?’… They loved the sight of rain: ’Oh good, we might get a day off.’” Chappell writes in his autobiography Fierce Focus.
He played two seasons before deciding to escape from the routine. It is slightly ironical that having given up a career as a professional cricketer he would later get embroiled in the controversy surrounding pay hikes for players — ultimately leading to the revolution of cricket through Kerry Packer.
Fierce focus in Tests
By the 1970-71 series, 22-year-old Greg Chappell had played nearly 100 First-Class matches, and had scored almost 6,000 runs with 11 centuries. So, when he was chosen among the Australian 12 for the first Ashes Test at Brisbane, it was not really surprising.
On the day before the Test, after practice with the Test team, a hungry Chappell rushed into lunch and reached for a bread roll. Leg-spinner Terry Jenner, equally hungry, thrust a fork forward to spear one for himself. Chappell lost a substantial chunk from the back of his hand. Concerned, he said to Jenner, “Be careful, I’ve got to play cricket tomorrow.” Captain Bill Lawry wryly remarked, “I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you.” That was how Chappell learnt that he was the 12th man.
However, in the second Test, the first-ever played at Western Australia Cricket Association ground, Perth, Chappell was picked as a batting all-rounder, slotted at No 7. He bowled quite a lot of medium- pace as Australia fielded first, capturing a memorable first Test wicket in the form of Colin Cowdrey. However, his first stint with the bat was akin to baptism by fire.
On a bouncy wicket, John Snow was spewing fire. Chappell spent around 40 minutes before scoring his first run, and 67 to get to double figures. But, after that, he observed the precept that was to serve him so well in years to come. He played every full-length delivery back in the arc between mid-on and extra cover. Apart from a hook off Snow that flew off the splice of the bat, there were few blemishes. He scored 108.
It was after the interview conducted at the end of the day that Richie Benaud told him, “Don’t ever stop playing your shots.” By Chappell’s own admission, he misunderstood the advice completely. The next few innings saw audacious stroke-play bringing quick demise. There was only one fifty in the seven other innings of the series. Even in First-Class and club cricket he got out after some quick cameos.
At this juncture an article by Keith Butler of the Adelaide Advertiser, mailed to him by Martin Chappell, made the talented young batsman realise that there was something wrong in his approach and he could lose his place in the Australian side.
The introspection that followed formed the philosophy of Greg Chappell’s batting and the approach he was to follow all through his career. The policy of fierce focus — the phrase that later lent itself as the title of his autobiography.
Previously he had broken up his innings into bite-sized chunks of 10 runs. Now, he concentrated on just the next ball. The intervals between balls were for relaxing. The few seconds involving each delivery were the moments spent in fierce concentration. That way, the past balls were forgotten. The present was all that mattered. And a few seconds of focus for each ball meant one could bat an entire day without battling mental fatigue. He broke up the levels of concentration into three further levels. A sense of awareness as he was going out to bat — the same state of mind maintained between balls throughout his innings. Just as the bowler was at the top of his mark, it shifted to fine focus — where the bowler’s face was watched for tell-tale information. As the bowler prepared to bowl, the final level of fierce concentration was invoked. And as soon as the ball was played it was back to awareness. This way, in the course of a long innings, Chappell could even tell when a friend had arrived to watch the game and what he had done, who he had spoken to … Because, between balls, he was in a state of awareness – the equivalent of mental relaxation.
This served him excellently from then on. Batting against the superb bowling attack of World XI led by Garry Sobers, he hit 115 not out at Melbourne and 197 not out at Sydney.
This was followed by the England tour of 1972. After Bob Massie had moved the ball around magically at Lord’s, capturing eight wickets on debut, Chappell walked out to join brother and captain Ian with the score reading seven for two, on a dull, dark second morning at Lord’s, with John Price and John Snow swinging it all over the place. While Ian Chappell counterattacked with hooks and pulls, scoring 56, Greg Chappell batted like a dream. Indeed, so absorbed was he in the innings that he did not even eat with the team, asking for his food in the dressing room. He did not hit a boundary in the first three hours, and the six hour 13 minute innings stands as one of the best seen on the ground, certainly one of the best ever innings of his celebrated career.
In the fifth Test at The Oval, the Chappell brothers scored centuries in the same innings. Australia won a tight match and the series was shared 2-2. Chappell, with over 400 runs in the Tests and 1260 on the tour, was named one of the Wisden Cricketers of 1973. Greg Chappell never looked back.
Triumph against adversity
Down the years, it was a tale of lofty elegance with ample reserves of grit and guts. When he went to West Indies for his only series, the strokeful grace built on his orthodox methods found the perfect surface for expression. When England visited in 1974-75, Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomsonhurled their offerings at the batsmen, spreading a reign of terror. With the bat, Chappell piled up 608 runs at 55.27 as Australia took the series 4-1. He also caught as many as seven batsmen at the Test at Perth, creating a record since then equalled by Yajurvindra Singh.
After succeeding brother Ian Chappell as captain, he led the team to a fantastic 5-1 victory against West Indies — a series in which he scored 702 runs at 117.00 against Andy Roberts, Michael Holding and Lance Gibbs. This included setting the tone of the series with two hundreds at Brisbane. Then there was the series-defining century at Melbourne. With the contests precariously poised 2-1 in favour of Australia, West Indies batted first and made 355. Chappell walked in at 103 for three, and compiled another classy and composed masterpiece. He remained unbeaten on 182 as Australia finished on 405, obtaining a lead which proved decisive to the Test and series. This innings was of immense importance because with Lillee down with pleurisy, and it would have always taken something special to engineer a win without him.
Through most of the years, there raged a constant war against circumstances and situations. There were dilemmas, difficulties, even tragedies. However, most often the bat triumphed over all the challenges that fate and the bowlers hurled at him.
The summer of 1973-74 was not the happiest for Greg Chappell. First, Brisbane was flooded and his house was inundated. Chappell returned early from a Test at Adelaide and waded knee deep in his house, spent his time assessing the damages and computing the costs of disinfecting, re-carpeting and repainting, looking at the muddy deposits left in the cabinets and, at night, joining the homeowners in their vigil to ward off looters. He had put the incident behind him, and had gone down to Sydney to lead Queensland against New South Wales. Chappell’s wife Judy, four months into pregnancy, was living with her parents in the city and came down to watch the cricket. When Judy did not come to the ground on the second day, Chappell, staying at the team hotel, played through the day with misgivings. In the evening he learned that she had miscarried. It was a tragic period for the physically and psychologically drained young couple. Yet, a few days later at Wellington, Chappell piled up 247 not out and 133, a record that would stand for 16 years as the highest aggregate in a Test match. It was a landmark effort as brother Ian scored two hundreds as well, the only instance of two brothers scoring centuries in each innings of a Test match.
It was also during the beginning of the 1973-74 season that he joined Queensland as captain. It was partly to gain experience as skipper, which was not really an option in South Australia with Ian Chappell at the helm. He also got a job in an insurance company — Friends Provident. It was also a self-confessed effort to be Greg Chappell and not Ian Chappell’s younger brother. While Ian and the entire family fully supported the move, when the brothers squared off in the Sheffield Shield matches, it was as competitive and combative as the backyard ‘Tests’ had been.
However, sometimes the fortunes tried him a bit too heartlessly. During the Ashes tour of 1975, he was miserable, homesick and yearning to lay his eyes on his new-born son. He failed in the series, scoring a miserable 106 runs in four Tests, with the highest of 73 being one of the most laborious innings he ever played.
Chappell’s batsmanship was perhaps scaled its highest peak to in front of a small scattering spectators during the World Series Cricket. In the two seasons of the most intense cricket matches contested by the best players of the world, he scored 1415 runs in 14 Tests with five hundreds against the most fearsome collection of bowlers. The quality of cricket was unbelievable, with Imran Khan, Mike Procter and Derek Underwood running in to bowl in even the most minor matches. Chappell caressed 246 not out in the last Supertest against the World XI, an innings he rated as his best ever.
This series was yet another of his eternal battles against the vagaries of fate and an eventual triumph. Chappell was diagnosed with Bell’s Palsy, and was in serious danger of compromised vision. Packer, who had been once afflicted with the disease himself, referred him to his personal surgeon. Chappell also devised his own therapy to hasten his recovery, a mental visualisation method he had adapted for cricket. He went to the West Indies with the Australian side against the doctor’s advice, wore safety goggles in the nets, and his eyes were back to normal by the time of the first match.
By late 1979, the London High Court action was over and the Establishment-Packer schism was ostensibly healed. Greg Chappell returned to Test cricket and was re-established as captain, the leadership taken away from caretaker skipper Kim Hughes.
Post Packer years and discontinuous captaincy
There was enough drive that remained within Chappell to see plenty of subsequent innings of class and mastery. He scored 587 runs in the curious simultaneous series against West Indies and England of 1979-80. He even toured Pakistan and made a mammoth 235 in Faisalabad. Double hundreds were amassed against the visiting India and Pakistan during the early years of the new decade.
Yet, there were increasing doubts and dilemmas about long tours that would take him away from his family. He led Australia in the Centenary Test at Lord’s, but opted out of the 1981 Ashes tour that followed. He handed the reins over to Kim Hughes and thus began a sequence of changes at the top, with Chappell leading the side whenever he made himself available and Hughes stepping in when he decided not to tour.
Chappell had led with flair and imagination against the West Indies in 1975-76. Of course he had played to win and was often ruthless. Captaincy removed the last semblance of a smile from his face, turning him saturnine, hard as nails. Even Graham Yallop, making his debut in the series, was on the receiving end of his no-nonsense attitude and rather sharp tongue when he requested a place in the slips.
Yet, the first days of leadership brought immense success. Chappell scored tons of runs and led his side to a 5-1 win. Yet, his captaincy could not maintain those exalted standards. When Australia visited England in 1977, his form with the bat was decent if not phenomenal — but on the field he was thoroughly outmanoeuvred by the canny Mike Brearley and lost the series 3-0.
The Australian team by then was divided into the prospective World Series players and the rest, and their hearts were not really in the Test matches.
He scored a brilliant 40 in the most difficult conditions in the first innings of the Centenary Test at Melbourne, and marshalled his resources well to obtain victory for Australia. But, it came as a relief to him when Ian Chappell came out of retirement to play in World Series Cricket and was Kerry Packer’s choice as captain of the Australian side.
After his return to Test cricket, captaincy brought him a mixed bag of results. Australia won against the visiting England in 1979-80 and 1981-82, the New Zealanders who came in 1980-81 and Pakistan in 1981-82. However, lost a series against West Indies in 1979-80, when they toured Pakistan in 1979-80 and could only draw against the limited Indian side of 1980-81 and on visiting New Zealand in 1981-82.
The stint at the helm in the early eighties was one of the most difficult periods of Greg Chappell’s career. In his own words, “By February 1 (1981) I wasn’t fit to captain a rowboat, let alone the Australian cricket team.”
In the summer of 1976-77, Australia had played 42 days of international cricket, of which only two days were high intensity one-day matches. In the two WSC summers, he had played 44 and 43 days respectively, with a rather more generous sprinkling of one-day matches. This meant more travel and fatigue.
However, on his return to the official fold, the pay was slightly better but the workload had increased significantly. 1979-80 saw 46 days of Tests and ten ODIs. By 1980-81, there were 62 days of Test matches and 18 ODIs, 80 days in a 100 day stretch which included several back to back ODIs in the weekends. He raised warning flags to the administrators but they remained mostly unseen and his voiced concerned unheard.
The underarm incident
Things came to a head when five finals were contested in the Benson and Hedges tri-series involving Australia, New Zealand and India. And at Melbourne, with the series tied 1-1, and six required to tie off the final delivery, Chappell was witnessed sitting down at mid-on, his hat pulled well over his eyes, knees folded up near his face. Unusually for a captain, he had spent a long time fielding deep down at long-off. Earlier that day, during his innings of 90, he had been caught by Martin Snedden low down in deep mid-wicket when he was on 52, but had refused to take the fielder’s word for it and walk. He had been allowed to continue his innings. Yet, Chappell was not really in the best frame of mind. He was feeling the pressure and beyond caring.
As Trevor Chappell turned from his bowling mark, he saw his elder brother and captain walking towards him. And the fatal question was soon thrown at him: “How’s your underarm bowling?”
The infamous moment of the underarm delivery followed. And Greg Chappell was roasted in the severe flames of criticism. Brother Ian was scathing in his writing the following day: “Fair dinkum, Greg, how much pride do you sacrifice to win $35,000? Because, brother, you sacrificed a lot in front of a huge TV audience and 52,825 people.”
Keith Miller observed, “One-day cricket died yesterday. Greg Chappell should be buried with it.”
Criticism was hurled even from the highest levels. The New Zealand Prime Minister, Robert Muldoon, said that it was “the most disgusting incident I can recall in the history of cricket … an act of true cowardice and I consider it appropriate that the Australian team were wearing yellow”. The Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, was not far behind either, voicing that it was “contrary to the traditions of the game”.
However, according to the interview given by McKechnie to The Age on the 25th anniversary of the incident, the New Zealander players were “pissed off” but attached no more importance to Chappell was roundly booed when he went into bat in the next match, but that could not stop him from securing the championship for Australia with an excellent 87.
Ending on a high
Although Chappell scored a double hundred against Pakistan in the following series, it was another marred by controversy with Lillee almost coming to blows with Javed Miandad. Chappell did not win too many hearts when he voiced full support for Lillee, stating that it was Miandad who had provoked him by jabbing the fast bowler with his bat handle, leading Lillee to aim a kick at him. The television cameras showed Lillee’s assault, but none of them captured Miandad’s alleged blow.
Even Bill O’Reilly, a long-time friend of the Chappell family, was not really amused. When Chappell had to shout to draw his attention while offering a lift in his car, the former leg-spinner explained that he had not seen the approaching vehicle, “I don’t have eyes at the back of my head — unlike some others.”
In 1981-82, when West Indies visited for a keenly contested drawn series, Chappell hit his worst trough as a batsman. He scored seven ducks that season, three of them in the Tests. After being out for four in an ODI at Melbourne, he even offered to allow the selectors to make a call on his place in the team. It was as he was sitting disconsolately in the dressing room that Rudi Webster, the trainer of the West Indians side, came in and pointed out that he was not watching the ball as closely as he used to.
It was all the help that he needed. Chappell was back organising his mental faculties to the level that had brought him all his success in the preceding decade. In the next two years till his retirement, he played 15 more Tests, scoring 1122 runs at 59.05 with five hundreds.
After Australia’s inaugural Test match against Sri Lanka at Kandy, Chappell finally gave up captaincy. His stint had lasted for a discontinuous 48 Tests, of which 21 had been won and 13 lost. It was a fairly successful run and no one doubted his cricketing acumen, tactics and the claims to the job. Yet, it does seem that he was not the happiest of captains.
Chappell played his last series against Pakistan under Kim Hughes. It is no secret that Lillee, Rod Marsh and Chappell were not really great admirers of the leadership of the young Western Australian. Chappell himself was to have several discussions with Hughes regarding how he needed to give up captaincy to concentrate on his batting, how Allan Border or Marsh would be better fits for the role. The reservations he had and voiced quite openly were not really appreciated by all, neither the role he played making Hughes give up captaincy in a tearful resignation. But, Chappell claimed in his autobiography that he spoke in the best interests of both Hughes and Australia.
In his final series, Chappell scored two huge hundreds. At Brisbane he scored an unbeaten 150, his happy last outing in his adopted home. It was at Adelaide, he had the epiphany that time had come to hang up his boots. “On the second or third morning, as I was fielding, I thought, ‘Gee, it must be almost time for lunch.’ When I looked at the clock, I was stunned: it was only twenty past eleven. This was a light-bulb moment. Ever since I’d played cricket, I’d loved fielding and rarely found time drag… So to see that clock in Adelaide and to realise I was bored on the field was earth-shattering.”
When he started out at Sydney for his last Test, he was 68 behind Bradman. There was also Colin Cowdrey’s record of 120 catches, and Chappell stood on 119. Pakistan batted first and he caught Mudassar Nazar off Geoff Lawson to draw level. During the Australian innings, Hughes dropped himself and Allan Border in the order to send Chappell at number four. He batted for nine hours to score 182. And in the second innings he caught Mohsin Khan off Lawson to grab the world record. And later went one further by taking Saleem Malik off his old friend Dennis Lillee. The Test was the famous swansong of an era of Australian cricket as Chappell, Lillee and Marsh all called it a day together.
Final analysis
Chappell’s final figures read 7110 runs from 87 Tests at 53.86, with 24 hundreds. His medium-pacers, and sometimes spin of both varieties when the wicket demanded, got him 47 Test wickets at 40.70. Although he bowled less and less as years went by and the burden of captaincy sat too heavy on his shoulders to roll his arm over, he did pick up five for 61 against Pakistan at Sydney in 1973, demonstrating that he had the potential to become quite a decent bowler if he put more heart and effort into it. It was at the same ground that he destroyed India in an ODI in 1980-81 with five for 15.
Chappell was not really very keen on playing too many ODIs during his career, but nevertheless played 74 of them and scored 2331 runs at 40.18 at a strike rate of 75.70, while capturing 72 wickets at 29.12. The figures are more than respectable even in the context of current day cricket.
Coaching and controversy
After retirement, Greg Chappell stepped into the shoes of Bradman yet again by becoming a selector of the Australian team and also a member of the Australian cricket board. He held both posts till 1988, having been instrumental in the selection of the likes of Steve Waugh, Merv Hughes and David Boon. Chappell also coached South Australia for five seasons and took up various roles as coach and cricket consultant.
The most celebrated and controversial was perhaps his stint with the Indian cricket team for two years from 2005 to 2007. It resulted in furious conflicts with the then Indian captain Sourav Ganguly and he was criticised by a lot of the players who did not really enjoy his coaching methods.
In Ganguly’s native Kolkata, the public did not forgive the coach for his hand in dropping their demi-god from the team and the reactions ranged from rooting for South Africa at Eden, burnt effigies of Chappell to idols of the demon asura being sculpted in the mould of his face.
During the Chappell era, India crashed out early in the World Cup, but did enjoy some memorable highlights as well. In Tests, they won seven and lost four, including a series win in West Indies after a wait of 35 years, and the first ever win on South African soil. In ODIs, they won 32 and lost 27, ending with a win-loss ratio exactly equal to the 1.18 managed under Ganguly.
Chappell was later reinstated as selector of Australia in 2010-11 before being banned from the Australian dressing room because of deteriorating relationship with the players. He was ultimately sacked during the tour of Sri Lanka in August 2011.
Greg Chappell (above) had a very troublesome relationship with the Indian team in general and Sourav Ganguly in particular during his tenure as coach of the Indian team © Getty Images
Elegance and ruthlessness
During his tenure as cricketer and captain he was classy, combative and controversial. He held back neither in his views, his unbridled aggression nor in hitting unwelcome streakers in the bum with his bat.
After his playing days, he remained dedicated to his own principles in cricket and often rubbed many a high profile cricketing person the wrong way. Controversy remained inseparable from him as did his combative nature. However, the class was evident throughout his career and his cricketing knowledge was seldom questioned even in the face of severe turbulence regarding his approach towards man-management.
He will forever be remembered as the Australian batsman who combined the celebrated ruthlessness of the country’s cricketing traditions with delightful finesse and craftsmanship of batting. There was all the bristling aggression and fierce competitiveness that characterises the Ugly Australian, but Greg Chappell was also beautiful to watch. That is what made him special.
Chappell was inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame in 2002.