Greg Chappell

Greg Chappell Biography

Greg Chappell is a former Australian cricketer, born on 7^th August 1948 in Unley, Adelaide. Chappell was primarily a top-order batsman, batting right handed and bowling occasional right-arm medium pace deliveries. He was inducted into the prestigious Australian Cricket Hall of Fame in 2002.

Background

Chappell was born into a family with a rich sporting background. He made his debut for South Australia in 1966-67 against Victoria. He scored a 50 on debut, a feat matched by his brothers and grandfather.

Chappell played a spectacular knock against Queensland in that season, coming into bat at 22/3 and watching his side reduced to 77/7, he made 104 to rescue his side.

Later, in the same season, he came to bat at 29/5 against Western Australia and played a classical knock of 154.

By 1970-71, Chappell had played nearly 100 first-class matches and scored almost 6000 runs. He was selected in the squad of 12 for the Ashes.

Debut

Greg made his test debut in the second Ashes test at Perth batting at number seven. He made 108 after picking 1/54 with the ball. He had poor latter half of the series with a single 50+ score in seven innings.

Chappell made his ODI debut in the first ever ODI match to be played in history. He made an unbeaten 22 to guide Australia to victory.

Rise to Glory

Chappell’s second Test ton was a masterful knock of 131 at the Lord’s which silenced critics who said that Chappell played a number of shots in the initial stages of his innings which leads to his downfall.

In 1972, at The Oval, Greg along with his brother Ian became the first pair of brothers to score hundreds in the same innings of a Test match. Greg scored 113.

As a testament to his qualities as an all-rounder, Greg Chappell picked up 5/61 against Pakistan at Sydney as Australia won by 52 runs and sealed a whitewash.

Low points

The tragedy in Chappell’s career lay in the fact that his greatest contributions are not recorded officially. He scored 1415 runs at an average of 56.60 in the 14 Tests he played in the Kerry Packer World Series Cricket in 1977.

Chappell was investigated in the underarm bowling incident against New Zealand in 1981. New Zealand needed six runs to win off the last ball and it was reported that Greg instructed brother Trevor Chappell to deliver the ball along the ground.

Captaincy

Greg Chappell took over the reigns of captaincy from his brother Ian in the 1975-76 season. He began with centuries in each innings in his first Test as captain against West Indies, a feat later replicated by Virat Kohli.

On returning from World Series Cricket, Greg was again given the role of captain and led the team to an Ashes victory in 1982-83.

In all, Australia won 21 out of 48 Test matches under Greg Chappell.

Records

In 1974 Greg Chappell made 247* and 133 against New Zealand in Wellington. His brother, Ian made centuries in both innings as well and remains the only occurrence of brothers scoring centuries in both innings of test matches till date.

Chappell was the first batsman to score hundreds in both his first and last Test innings.

He was the first Australian to reach 7000 Test runs overtaking the tally of Sir Don Bradman.

Retirement

Greg Chappell played his last Test match against Pakistan at Sydney in 1984. He scored 182 as Australia won the test convincingly.

After retirement, he has worked as a full-time commentator on multiple occasions. His most high-profile job was the coach of the Indian cricket team for two years till the 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup.

He is one of the selectors of the Australian team and continues to be the National Talent Manager for Australian cricket.