conversations with Ian Chappell

Chappelli on the Upcoming Ashes Series

How are Australia shaping up for the Ashes?
Well, if you see me betting on Australia against England you'll know I'm wearing someone else's pants. Certainly in England. If England lost that series they'd need their heads read. If Australia get their best attack together it'll be a damn good attack – that's one area where we are strong. But getting them on the field has been a problem. I don't think we'll have Cummins, but if we have Pattinson, Starc, Siddle, that's the basis of a pretty decent pace attack. I think Jackson Bird will bowl well in England. Pace bowling won't be a problem, but our batting and our spin bowling, there's not much depth there. Young batsmen, that's been the big problem. You look at the 28- to 30-year-old debutants in the last few years; that's something that just never used to happen in Australian cricket. Now it's the norm.

Chappelli on Siddle

A fair few English people don't rate Peter Siddle after the 2010-11 Ashes. Is it fair to say he's a different bowler since Craig McDermott's spell as a bowling coach?

For a definitive answer you'd have to ask him, but I don't think it's a coincidence that he became a better bowler when McDermott was coach, and that's because he pitched the ball up more. He's always had the big heart, but, mate, he's a much improved bowler. He is swinging the ball again. I think England would underestimate him at their peril.

Chappelli on Pietersen

How would the Kevin Pietersen business have been resolved in your day?

The thing about the system back then was that the only people you had to satisfy were your team-mates and your captain. If the manager of the team had started to stick his nose into it we'd have told him to **** off and mind his own business. My approach as captain would have been to say to Kevin, "Mate, I want you in my team." As far as I'm concerned – and this is not just Kevin Pietersen, this is all players – I'm only going to ask one question: can he get me a 100 runs or can he get me five wicekts? If the answer to that is yes, put him in my team and now it's up to me to make sure it works with the rest of the team.

That's my job as a leader. If it gets to the point where it's not working, well eventually you've got to cut a fella adrift. But if he's a player who can get me a hundred, particularly if he can get me a hundred quickly, he'll have to **** me off greatly for me to cut him adrift.

To me that was part of leadership – everyone talks about it being a team game, which it is, but it's a team game played by 11 individuals, and to me the fun part of captaincy, and the challenge, was having all these different personalities and trying to make it fit together. You've got to let guys be individuals, because that's part of what makes them very good cricketers.

If I'd told Dougie Walters that he couldn't drink and he had to go to bed at 9 o'clock, I'd have lost him immediately as a team man and also I'd be trying to make Doug Walters into something that he's not.

Chappelli on Warne

Clarke is very good mates with Shane Warne. Has he learned a bit about positive, instinctive captaincy from him?

It's in you. The only way to learn captaincy is to do it. It won't matter if you talk to someone else. Okay, Graeme Smith played in the same IPL team as Shane Warne, and he said, "I learned a lot about captaincy from Shane Warne." Well, I haven't seen it on the field. He's got an aura about him, and he's a terrific leader in the clubhouse and in terms of getting players to follow him, but I don't see much tactical imagination on the field.

If the guy's got those instincts, you can perhaps help him but … I always used to say, if a cricketer's overconfident, I don't mind that. You can knock a bit out, but you can't put it in, and I'd say exactly the same about imagination as a captain

Chappelli on Tony Grieg

Chappelli had more than his fair share of clashes with players of his generation as well. He had an extended face off with another English all-rounder Tony Greig.

The two had started off on excellent terms. When at Leeds, 1975, vandals had dug holes in the pitch and poured oil in the danger zone, Australia would have struggled to face Derek Underwood on the final day had the captains decided to go ahead with the game. A worried Chappell had thoroughly appreciated it when Greig had agreed to call the match off.

However, things changed drastically when they led their respective teams during Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket (WSC), Chappell captaining Australia and Greig the skipper of the World XI.

In an experimental 40 over game at VFL Park, Melbourne, playing under lights for the first time, the captains agreed that there would be no bouncers bowled. However, as Chappell and Rick McCosker were easily chasing down the World XI total, Greig broke the bouncer pact. Chappell threatened to turn the lights off for him.

In the ‘Supertest’ in Gloucester Park, Greig came in to bat wearing one of the early editions of experimental helmets (aka the White one), and Dennis Lillee promptly used it as a great target. After hitting Greig on the helmet with a bouncer, he followed it up by pointing at his own head to underline his intentions. A psychologically-winded Greig, by the time of the WSC a shadow of the excellent player he had once been, spooned a catch to cover. However, when he soon returned as a runner for the injured Gordon Greenidge, Chappell promptly told him to come back in his full gear, including the helmet.

Things deteriorated further when Australia batted. Chappell was struck by a bouncer from Andy Roberts and broke his little finger. A compulsive hooker, he resorted to blocking and fending the super fast short balls. It was then that Greig put himself on and tried to bounce Chappell out.

Promptly hooking him for four, Chappell responded saying, “Mate, I might not be able to hook good bowling, but I can hook your s**t.” Greig bounced once more and was again hooked for four. The two had a long go at each other. Gary Duperouzel, the umpire, eventually stepped in and asked them to shut up and get on with the game, but not before Greig had threatened to smash a bottle over Chappell’s head.

Greig did confess that negotiating business with Packer and soliciting signatures from the probable recruits to WSC made him something less of a cricketer. There was also some suggestion that Chappell felt Greig and Packer were too close, with Packer making excuses for Grieg.

Derek Underwood adds that, “There was a lot going on between Tony and Ian, and it was a lot to do with Greigy being the senior figure.”

Chappell tries to explain his antagonism as, “The problem I had with him during WSC was that he was off earning money by doing ads while the rest of his team was training... he held his place in the superb team and he did not deserve to.” However, Greig is more blunt. “I didn’t like him and he didn’t like me. As simple as that.”

During the decider of the second WSC season, with World XI needing two runs to win with five wickets in hand, Chappell took the ball and propelled it down the leg side for four wides. Following this rather disgraceful gesture, he kept smoking a cigar during the post match presentation and refused to shake Greig’s hand.

Down the years, more angry remarks were exchanged between the two, directly or over columns and interviews. However, when they started sharing the commentary box for Channel Nine, the two stalwarts slowly buried their long serving hatchets and eked out an eminently workable relationship.

It is perhaps fitting that by the time of Grieg's premature and unfortunate demise, that Chappelli and he, were on much more civil terms and the latter offered quite a fitting tribute in respect of his passing." COTWWG

Chappelli on Steve Waugh

After crossing swords with Bradman, Botham, Greig and innumerable minor characters, Chappelli carried his duels well into the next generation. One of the major targets of his vitriol was Steve Waugh.

The biggest complaint Chappell had against Waugh was that he was a conservative captain and a self-centred cricketer who often put himself ahead of the game.

He singles out Waugh’s decision to declare at the start of the 2003-04 season that he was going to retire at the end of it, thus ensuring he could have a grand farewell, as the defining example of selfishness.

Chappell was not at all amused when Damien Martyn was run out in the first Test versus India at the Gabba, primarily through a bad call by Waugh. According to him, Martyn gave up his wicket because at the back of his mind he knew that this was Waugh’s farewell season.

When, after he had retired, some analysts stated that Waugh was the most influential Australian cricketer since Bradman, Chappell blew his top, saying, “That is nonsense.” He went on to name Richie Benaud, Dennis Lillee, Allan Border and Shane Warne as some of the cricketers who should be ranked far above Waugh.

Two of his comments about the middle order batsman stand out.
In 1991-92, when Waugh used to do a lot of bowling, Chappell was in the commentary box with his old pal, Tony Greig, who remarked, “This bloke has to be the best all-rounder in the Southern Hemisphere.” Chappell picked up the microphone and said, “Tony, he’s not even the best all-rounder in his own family.” Chappell always maintained that Mark Waugh was a superior cricketer than his twin.

And when someone told him that he was going to watch Steve Waugh’s last Test, Chappell remarked, “Have you seen him bat before? Why are you bothering? If you’ve seen one Steve Waugh innings, you’ve seen them all.” For his part, Waugh did not take Chappell’s rancour lying down. “To say Chappell's criticism irked me would be an understatement,” he wrote.

He maintains that the comments were always "personal" and that Chappell “always sweated on my blunders and reported them with an 'I told you so' mentality.”

Chappelli on the Decision Review System

If the BCCI had more faith in their hand picked television commentators and allowed them to discuss the DRS on air, they might discover there are some like-minded souls out there — i.e. people who are equally skeptical of the system.

If ever evidence was needed that there are flaws in the Decision Review System, they were amply provided in the SCG One Day International between Australia and Sri Lanka. With Michael Clarke having used up Australia’s sole review, both David Warner and Moises Henriques were then ambushed by incorrect umpiring decisions. Both batsmen got a healthy inside edge to deliveries that resulted in them being adjudged lbw.

Those SCG examples contradict the assertion of Dave Richardson when he spoke to a gathering of Channel Nine commentators at the Gabba, as the ICC general manager. Prior to that 2009-10 series against West Indies he told the gathered assembly; “The DRS is designed to eradicate howlers and get the right decision.”

At the time I thought; “How can you guarantee the correct decision will be reached when there are a finite number of unsuccessful reviews?”

I suspected the individual aspect of a team game would ensure the bulk of the reviews would be utilised by top-order batsmen. As former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating shrewdly observed; “Always bet on self-interest because you know it’s a goer.”

Little did I realise that the DRS would also become more of a tactical ploy than a review system.

In the same way the West Indies in their heyday would slow the over-rate on the odd occasion they were in danger of losing a game, the DRS is often used as an unwarranted tactical ploy. Umpiring decisions and over rates should never be a part of cricket’s tactical fabric.

Because the DRS is in the unreliable hands of the players, it’s being used more for 50-50 decisions than to eradicate the howlers. If a team’s best batsman is at the crease and the side is in trouble, a review will almost always result — more a case of self-preservation than any highly principled attempt to be a part of improving the umpiring standard.

The constant reviewing of fifty/fifty decisions can only undermine the confidence of the umpires and more importantly, is likely to change their decision-making thought process. There never has been, nor will there ever be, a case where a fifty/fifty decision causes animosity on the cricket field. Players are conditioned to accept that one day these decisions will go your way and the next they’ll go against you.

What does cause animosity on the field are the absolute howlers that can change the course of a match. Andrew Symonds being given not out to an obvious caught behind early in his innings and then going on to score 162 not out is a classic example of a howler that caused great animosity on the field.

It also led to a terse retort from the normally equitable Anil Kumble at the after-match press conference.

Putting the DRS in the hands of the players also encourages one of the founding principles of the game to be flaunted. As kids growing up we were told; “The umpire is right so always accept his decision without question.”

Another flaw in the DRS is the way it interrupts the flow of the game. Some of the more exciting moments, like the celebration of a crucial wicket or a brilliant catch are put on hold, never to be recaptured, as the review process grinds to a conclusion. And it would be a case of criminal interference to interrupt the celebration of a hat-trick with a torturous review.

Surely it’s time to put any review system in the hands of the umpires so that it stops being a tactic, rids the game of the howler and, on most occasions, brings a satisfactory outcome. Trying to devise a system that produces the correct decision is not possible at the moment (probably never will be) and attempting to achieve that aim robs the game of one part of the delightfully enticing “human element”.

It’s time to seriously re-think the DRS. It’s a topic that should involve a lot of discussion and input from ex-players and even some robust debate on
commentary.

Today is Good Friday
It certainly is after reading the latest batch of Chappell isms

I had not realised Chappell had antagonistic views on Steve Waugh

I agree with Chappellis views on DRS

I recall Chappelli's retort that S Waugh wasn't the best all-rounder in his family, but I too hadn't realised the extent of Chappell's negative opinion of Waugh.

I hate the DRS but if the cricket world wants it, IMO two things have to happen:
1. The DRS is in the umpire's control - similar to NRL.
2. It must be included in all cricket series, not at the selection of the teams.

The biggest beef about the whole thing is that the ICC hasn't stood up and made it a consistent system, mainly because the tremble at the thought of the BCCI jumping up and down.

the DRS was brought in to eliminate the blatantly wrong decisions by umpires (eg a little nick onto the pads being given out lbw)....however most batsmen & Michael Clarke is the most obvious one, goes upstairs at every opportunity, he eliminates complete human error & this isn't how it should be, if the umpire says out & the replays has it just missing or just clipping it should still be out otherwise lets just let the camera & computers make the decisions & yet the camera with low to the ground catches can't clearly give a definitive result because it isn't in '3D'

it evens out, i recall being given not out when giving an edge to 2nd slip & another time getting out lbw & getting a snick into the pads, it is & should be just part of the game

howthewestwaswon wrote:I hate the DRS but if the cricket world wants it, IMO two things have to happen:
1. The DRS is in the umpire's control - similar to NRL.
2. It must be included in all cricket series, not at the selection of the teams.

The biggest beef about the whole thing is that the ICC hasn't stood up and made it a consistent system, mainly because the tremble at the thought of the BCCI jumping up and down.

But as far as I can ascertain india want the DRS that you suggest and not what we currently have. That has been their biggest beef, the players asking for the review.

robranisgod wrote:

howthewestwaswon wrote:I hate the DRS but if the cricket world wants it, IMO two things have to happen:
1. The DRS is in the umpire's control - similar to NRL.
2. It must be included in all cricket series, not at the selection of the teams.

The biggest beef about the whole thing is that the ICC hasn't stood up and made it a consistent system, mainly because they tremble at the thought of the BCCI jumping up and down.

But as far as I can ascertain india want the DRS that you suggest and not what we currently have. That has been their biggest beef, the players asking for the review.

Thanks RIG for clearing that up for me. I was unaware that that was the case.

Chappelli on Hookesy's Broken Jaw

Kerry Packer was geenrous in his reward of players signing his contracts during the WSC period. But it may not be known how far his interest in their health actually stretched.

Says Chappelli, after the sickening blow David Hookes received after missing a shot from an Andy Roberts bouncer, his name suggests he should not have, a reasonably quick inspection by the doctor determined that the hospital was the best place for the sorry and sore Hookesy.

Kerry Packer decided that rather than waiting for an ambulance, he would drive Hookesy himself. After making him as comfortable as possible Packer sped off in a cloud of dust.

A few of the players went to the hospital to see how Hookesy was getting on and asked about how comfortable the trip was in the back of the limo.

Through wired up clenched teeth, Hookesy mumbled, "you must be bloody joking, we did 100 miles an hour all the way, passed everything on the road and never stopped for a red light or stop sign, I was scared stiff".

Kerry had joined the bedside vigil at this point and offered, "that was the point David, to take your mind off the pain".

This is Ian Chappells Team For The Trenches

1 Keith Stackpole
2 Bruce Laird
3 Ian Chappell
4 Greg Chappell
5 Ian Redpath
6 Doug Walters
7 Rodney Marsh
8 Graeme Watson
9 Dennis Lillee
10 Ashley Mallett
11 Jeff Thomson

Managers
Ray Steele
Bill Jacobs

This looks like a team selected from Ian Chappell's era
Max Walker and Bob Cowper must have been considered
Its pleasing to see Bruce Laird in the line up , was perhaps the gutsiest of them all

No Rick McCosker or Rick Darling..

Chappelli on Keith Miller

Chappelli's formative cricket was honed by a number of coaches, including his Dad, Martin.

However, as boy arguably the most influential person on his cricketing outlook, was Keith Miller. Miller was his boyhood hero, and regarded by some as the best captain never to lead Australia.

Like Chappelli, Miller had a larrikin streak and was a crowd pleasing batsman who held entertainment of the fans as an important part of the game.

Chappelli recounts that as a kid in the backyard playing imaginery tests, he was always Keith Miller. You can just about imagine him beating up on his brothers if they wanted in on being Keith.

He goes on to say, when they got out they would write their name and score in an old scorebook and if "Miller" got out cheaply, he would cross his name out and write somebody else's name down.

The fire in Chappelli's belly has probably settled a bit over his years in the commentary box, but when asked how long he would keep going at it, he quoted his old hero, Keith Miller, "I'd rather they asked me why don't you, rather than why didn't you."

Chappelli on the tour to the West Indies 1973

After the Aussies tour to England in 1972 and Pakistan touring Australia in 1972-1973, the Australians toured the West Indies in 1973.

One of the most notable facts about this tour is that Lillee and Massie had been struck down with injuries and the bowling attack looked a little brittle. Max Walker and Jeff Hammond became the main pointers of the pace attack.

In Trinidad, the Windies needed only 60 to win with 6 wickets in hand. At lunch Chappelli lay down on a couch and rested in the dressing room. There were no impassioned speeches or berations.
He simply pulled on the baggy green cap and said "this would be a good one to win - let's go."

Walker dismissed Kallicharran first ball after lunch and the Aussies went on to a famous victory.

Chappelli just would not hear of defeat.

Chambo Off To Work We Go wrote:Chappelli on the tour to the West Indies 1973


Chappelli just would not hear of defeat.

Do you think he would make a comeback if Glenelg asked him to coach them at footy, not cricket.

Reckon he was a Bay supporter.
Played District Cricket for them initially and lived down that way.

But I don't think so, he would probably want to play!

Ian was/is a West Adelaide man actually

Probably should have been a Double Blue supporter given his Grandfather's influence.

In my day 58 beers between London and Sydney would have virtually classified you as a teetotaller

By Ian Chappell
When informed about David Boons 52 cans of beer on a flight

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2014/mar/04/joy-of-six-ian-chappell

Posted here too for completeness of this thread

Harris knows no barriers and in this regard he reminds me of Dennis Lillie
Lillie was always the last player to concede defeat
Harris is the same and like Lillie , he also has an enormous pain threshold

Ian Chappell
On Ryan Harris
After the tour of South Africa
What a magnificent endorsement
Harris Test performances wise are almost Lilliesque


Warner can beat an opponent with his bat
he dosen't need to double up with his mouth

By Ian Chappell
On David Warner's rather provoctive media comments on opposition teams and players
I agree
Ok now but it will bite him one day

And this is what retired English off spinner Graham Swann had to say about Warner
" Hes performing on the field , but I would never pretend he is a bloke I want to have a beer with ."