Greg Chappell

 ( 1948 Births ) 

The inconsistent form continued the following season, when he was omitted from the Australian team for the series with a Rest of the World XI. Press criticism led to a rethink of his mental approach, and when reinstated a new Chappell emerged. He invented what became known as the Chappell "vee" where he played the ball exclusively in a narrow arc between mid off and mid on until he felt he had his eye in.McGregor (1985), pp 81–3. This reorganisation brought him scores of 115* and 197* in the third and fourth unofficial Tests.

Chappell's new-found approach continued to yield results on the 1972 Ashes tour of England. Going into the second Test at Lord's Cricket Ground, Australia was down 1–0, after losing the first Test at Old Trafford by 89 runs. In a match that would be remembered for Bob Massie's remarkable 16-wicket haul, Chappell's masterful 131 in Australia's first innings was a key component in squaring the series. Coming in after Australia had lost its first two wickets with only seven runs on the board, Chappell combined with older brother Ian to steady the innings. The pair put on 75 runs for the third wicket, with Chappell happy to hold down one end while Ian took charge of the scoring. Chappell would not score his first boundary until three hours into his innings, but thereafter the runs flowed. He managed to bring up a well-deserved century just before the close of play on Day Two, and batted for a further hour-and-a-half the next day before he was bowled by Basil D'Oliveira. He had batted for over six hours and hit 14 boundaries. Chappell himself rated this his best innings, as did Richie Benaud, who wrote:

...I thought it close to the most flawless innings I had seen and I still believe that to be the case. It was beautifully elegant with wonderfully executed strokes, great technique and it exhibited a deep knowledge of what was needed to square the series''Benaud, 2005, p. 208

His game went from strength to strength. In the fifth Test at the Oval, he hit another ton, sharing a big partnership with Ian as they became the first brothers to score Test centuries in the same innings.Cashman (1996), p 101. Against Pakistan he made 116* and 62 at Melbourne and bagged 5 for 61 at Sydney. On the subsequent trip to the West Indies, he achieved the rare feat of scoring a thousand runs on a Caribbean tour, which included 106 in the Test at Bridgetown, Barbados.

In recognition of his outstanding 1972 Ashes tour, Chappell was named, along with fellow Australians Bob Massie, Dennis Lillee and Keith Stackpole, as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1973.

With the Australian team now undergoing a dramatic renaissance, Chappell was the leading batsman, giving him a huge national profile. This brought a lucrative offer to move to Brisbane and captain the Queensland side, as a precursor to taking over the Australian captaincy when Ian decided to retire. He made the move in the winter of 1973.

Unfortunately for Chappell, his health was now blighted by recurring tonsillitis and he found it difficult to bat for long periods during the 1974–75 Ashes series. He was the backbone of Australia's sometimes inconsistent batting, scoring 608 runs at 55.3. At Sydney, where Australia won to reclaim the Ashes, Chappell dominated with 84 and 144, which he followed up with a century in a losing cause in the sixth Test at Melbourne. At Perth, he broke the world record for a fielder by snaring seven catches. Ironically, his grandfather Vic Richardson was one of several players who held the old record of six. Chappell reluctantly had his tonsils removed, but he quickly lost a lot of weight which affected his performance on the tour of England that followed. He played in the World Cup (for what proved to be the only time), then made only one good score (73* at Lords) in the four Ashes Tests that followed.

The peak of Australia's form proved to be brief. The team lost a number of players to early retirement, mainly because remuneration was so poor. Chappell was able to parlay his position into a reasonable income with his Queensland contract and personal endorsements, but he still needed to develop business interests in life insurance outside the game. His leadership abilities were tested in the summer of 1976–77 as a number of new players were blooded and Jeff Thomson was laid low by long-term injury. Australia received much criticism for defensive play during a drawn series with Pakistan, but Chappell's form was faultless, and he scored 121 and 67 in the only Test victory. The tour to New Zealand that followed was similar; it was clear Australia was in a rebuilding phase. During the Test at Auckland, a Streaking appeared when Chappell was at the crease. Incensed by this new craze and the disruption that it caused, Chappell grabbed the man and hit his bare backside with the bat. When play resumed, the ensuing din from the incident caused Chappell to mis-hear his partner's call for a run, and he found himself run out.McGregor (1985), p 141. For once, the Chappell concentration had been broken. But the most significant occurrence of this match occurred off-field: Chappell was approached to sign with a proposed break away competition, later to be known as World Series Cricket (WSC).Gideon Haigh, The Cricket War, Text Publishing 1993. . p 42.

Chappell formally signed a WSC contract the following month, during the Centenary Test, a one-off match against England commemorating one hundred years of Test cricket.Harte (1993), p 580-1. He was offered the most lucrative WSC contract in line with his age and high profile as captain of Australia.McGregor (1985), p 144-5. Chappell led Australia to a dramatic victory. Some of his players felt that he struggled to cope with the pressure of captaincy during the tense England run chase on the final day,Lillee, Dennis (2003): Lillee – an Autobiography, Hodder. . p 150. when Australia won a dramatic victory, due to by a marathon bowling spell from Dennis Lillee. But Lillee's absence for the forthcoming tour of England would hamper Chappell's campaign to retain the Ashes.Lillee (2003), p 130.

News of the WSC break away was leaked early in the tour,Haigh (1993), p 61. and Chappell quickly found himself besieged.McGregor (1985), p 149. Tour officials and administrators back home questioned his loyalty, journalists were constantly looking for comment, while non-WSC players in the squad accused him of bias in team selections.McGregor (1985), p 150. Leading an inexperienced team in often inclement weather sapped his confidence,Haigh (1993), p 79-80. while the English bowlers, knowing that he was the key wicket, constantly put him under pressure.Mike Brearley & Dudley Doust (1978): The Return of the Ashes, Pelham Books Ltd. . See chapter 6 – "The Struggle Against Chappell", pp 42–55. After a brave 44 and 112 failed to save the second Test at Manchester, his form fell away and the team slipped to a 0–3 loss.

Chappell, who was a tremendous player of pace bowling, is regarded as one of the greatest batsmen ever to play for Australia.Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 1985, Chappell, Lillee and Marsh, retrieved from [1] Dickie Bird, That's Out!, p.63 Although adept in all aspects of batting, he was especially noted as a strong player on the on side (or leg side) of the wicket. The English writer and commentator John Arlott wroteGreg Chappell and David Frith, The Ashes '77, Foreword of him in 1977:

In the final "Supertest" of the first season, Chappell captained the Australian team as his brother had suffered a broken finger. After four losses in five matches, the Australians turned matters around, thanks to a magnificent 246* by Greg Chappell, the highest innings played during the existence of WSC. However, the constant diet of fast bowling got to Chappell in the next season, and he managed to pass fifty in the Supertests just once. With a WSC tour of the West Indies looming, Chappell was diagnosed with Bell's Palsy and one side of his face was paralysed. Doctors and family advised him to miss the trip, but Chappell was determined to go and utilise a modified technique he had devised for facing the relentless fast bowling.

After a slow start, Chappell hit the richest vein of form in his career. In quick succession, he peeled off 45 and 90 in Barbados, 7 and 150 in Trinidad, 113 in Guyana and finished his WSC career with 104 and 85 in Antigua, all scored against an attack of Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Colin Croft and Joel Garner on their home wickets.Haigh (1993), pp 287–9. Unfortunately for Chappell, WSC matches are not included in official statistics as he scored five hundreds in 14 Supertests and a total of 1415 runs at 56.6 average.See Haigh (1993). The appendix section has a comprehensive statistical section for the WSC matches In all, he missed 24 Test matches during his exile from official cricket.

Despite protesting the strenuous nature of the players' workload in this new era, Chappell found himself leading the team to Pakistan two weeks after the end of the Australian season.McGregor (1985), p 181. Pakistan narrowly won the first Test, then prepared featherbed wickets for the remaining two matches.Lillee (2003), p 159-160. At Faisalabad, Chappell made 235 and as a protest at the pitch, allowed all eleven Australians to have a bowl in Pakistan's innings – the first time this had happened in a Test since 1884. Australia lost the series 0–1. Later in the year, Australia played a second Centenary Test, this time to commemorate the first Test played in England, and the match (played at Lords) ended in a draw due to poor weather. One of only four players who played both matches, Chappell scored 47 and 59, but his best remembered contribution to the match was an attempted citizen's arrest (along with England captain Ian Botham) of an MCC member who attacked one of the umpires in a very ill-tempered scene.Botham, Ian (1994): Botham: My Autobiography, Collins Willow. . p 105.

The 1980–81 season brought another three-way competition, this time with New Zealand and India. In the Tests, Australia had a convincing win over the Kiwis, but was held to a drawn series against India. Chappell was in good form throughout the summer, but managed only two international centuries. The first came at Sydney in an ODI against New Zealand, when Chappell set a then record Australian score of 138*. Early in the new year, on the same ground, he played his first Test against India. Despite suffering a bad stomach upset, Chappell hit 204, an innings described by Wisden as "masterly". However, this season is best remembered for the triangular ODI series, specifically the third of the best of five finals series, played in Melbourne on 1 February 1981 (See #Underarm controversy, below).

Chappell experienced his only extended run of poor form during the 1981–82 Australian season, which featured Test and One Day matches against the West Indies and Pakistan. His 201 in the second test of the season, against Pakistan, was his only score of note and he registered seven ducks in total in the international matches, including four consecutive ducks spread across two Test matches and two One Day matches. Chappell's average in the Test matches was 30.6 (13.6 without the double century) and his average in the One Day matches was 17.7.

From 1981 onwards, Chappell did not make himself available for most overseas tours. Thus Kim Hughes was captain for the 1981 and 1982 tours of England and Pakistan respectively, before Chappell was returned the captaincy for the Australian summers of 1981–82 and 1982–83. Chappell retired as captain in 1983, playing his last test series (1983–84) under Hughes as captain.

Chappell played his last Test match in January 1984, making 182 in his final innings. Thus, Chappell became the first Test batsman in history to score centuries in both his first and last Test innings. Of all the Test batsmen who have retired since 1974 and scored more than 2,000 Test runs, Chappell's Test batting average of 53.86 is the third highest, behind Kumar Sangakkara (57.41) and Jacques Kallis (55.37). And if Chappell's batting average in Kerry Packer's "Supertests" (the hardest cricket Chappell says he ever played) were added to his test record, his overall average would be 54.30

At this point, Greg Chappell intervened, told his brother to deliver the ball along the ground (i.e. underarm) and he then informed the umpire to let the batsman know of the change of bowling style. Despite the protestations of wicketkeeper Rod Marsh, the ball was delivered and the batsman simply put his bat in front of the ball to stop. He then hurled his bat away. A large crowd of 50,000 – mostly Australian – loudly booed the Australian team from the field. The New Zealand Prime Minister Rob Muldoon said it was "the most disgusting incident I can recall in the history of cricket", the Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser said it was "contrary to the traditions of the game", and the Chappells' decision was universally condemned. Underarm bowling and Australia-New Zealand trade , by John Knight of the University of Otago Both brothers have expressed regret and embarrassment over the incident.

Among the decisions made by the panel when Chappell was a selector included encouraging Kim Hughes to resign, not selecting Hughes for the 1985 Ashes, trying Wayne Phillips, Greg Dyer and Tim Zoehrer as wicket-keepers, and fast-tracking Craig McDermott and Ian Healy into the national side.

This role was the subject of negative public and media commentary, Politicians turn up the heat on Chappell. ESPNcricinfo. 27 November 2006. for his tinkering with the batting lineup and his coaching methods. Several senior Indian players criticised Chappell's methods, including Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh, and Zaheer Khan His coaching and methods came into question as India crashed out of the 2007 Cricket World Cup in the first round, the first time since the 1992 Cricket World Cup, leading to Chappell's resignation..

Chappell was a Veganism. "Chappell goes in to bat for vegans" . ABC News. Retrieved 25 June 2020. "Are more cricketers turning vegetarian and vegan?" . The Cricket Monthly. Retrieved 25 June 2020.

Chappell was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1986.

In 2002, he was inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame.

• List of international cricket centuries by Greg Chappell

• Richie Benaud (2025). 9780340833933, Hodder & Stoughton Ltd. . ISBN 9780340833933
• (1997). 9780195535754, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195535754
• (2025). 9781742702360, Hardie Grant. ISBN 9781742702360

• Watch Greg Chappell hit a century on debut in 1970 (black & white footage)