Neither a supreme stylist nor a statistical titan, Ian Chappell was a fearless batsman who hooked and pulled with an indomitable spirit throughout his career, eager to attack and score briskly. Across two full decades of first-class cricket he always strode purposefully to the crease with an upturned collar and a compulsion to fidget, repeatedly marking out his guard and adjusting his protector in a series of idiosyncratic tics. Upon facing up his first movement was invariably back and across the crease, ready to play favoured horizontal bat strokes.
Chappell was stumped only twice in his first hundred Test innings. Richie Benaud once labelled his supple footwork to spinners “close to perfect”. He took some time to find his feet as an international batsman, but once promoted to No 3 in the 1968-69 home summer against the West Indies, he flourished and made the spot his own. There was 117 and 50 in the Brisbane Test, 165 at the MCG, and 76 and 96 on his home ground Adelaide; 548 in all, helping Australia to a 3-1 series victory.
“By 26 he developed a fully furnished batting style with wall-to-wall footwork,” said Ray Robinson. To him, Chappell was “a cricket Houdini”, both for what he was able to conjure as a captain and the physical durability he showed as a batsman in a run of 71 Tests without injury.
John Arlott called Chappell “a cricketer of effect rather than the graces” and at no time was he more effective than in partnership with his younger brother Greg. Both scored centuries in a 201-run stand in the 1972 Oval Test, which Australia won by five wickets. A partnership of 264 was plundered at the expensive of the 1974 New Zealanders in Wellington, with Ian (145 and 121) and Greg (247 and 133) making remarkable twin centuries. The irony of that familial dominance was that it came in a drawn encounter, a result that wasn’t of much appeal to Chappelli the captain. Fittingly, his own high water mark of 196 came in a crushing innings victory over Pakistan at Adelaide in 1972.
An underrated aspect of Chappell’s batting when he was also encumbered with that captaincy (for 30 Tests), was that his openers shielded him from the new ball to the extent of a 100-run partnership only twice. In 29 innings during that time he entered the crease with fewer than 20 runs on the board. Never did that pressure faze him unduly.
His were fighting instincts. After rolling his ankle on a tennis ball 24 hours before the third Test of Australia’s 1973 tour of the West Indies, Chappell iced the injury, strapped his foot and despite the limitations placed upon his signature footwork, played a match-winning innings of 97 to help Australia to a narrow victory. In that innings the West Indies spin triumvirate of Lance Gibbs, Inshan Ali and Elquemedo Willett bowled 94 of the 107 overs on a sharply turning wicket.
Chappell’s career record of 14 Test centuries doesn’t tell the full story. He made another four against Garry Sobers’s World XI of 1971-72, matches against formidable attacks that nevertheless don’t count onofficial Test records. As reliable a slip fielder as any to play the game, Chappell snared 105 catches in Test cricket and took a staggering 27 in the summer of 1968-69.
No comments:
Post a Comment