Family and Early Career
The first of three sons born in Adelaide to Martin and Jeanne (née Richardson), Chappell was steeped in the game from an early age. His father was a noted Adelaide grade cricketer who put a bat in his hands as soon as he could walk, and his maternal grandfather was a famous all-round sportsman Vic Richardson, who captained Australia at the end of a nineteen-Test career. Chappell was given weekly batting lessons from the age of five, as were younger brothers Greg and Trevor, who both went on to play for Australia.
Chappell grew up in the beachside suburb of Glenelg and attended the local St Leonard's Primary School where he played his first competitive match at the age of seven. He was later selected for the South Australian state schoolboys team. He then enrolled at Prince Alfred College, a private secondary school noted for producing many Test cricketers, including the Australian captains Joe Darling and Clem Hill. His other sporting pursuits included Australian football and baseball: Chappell's performances for his state in the Claxton Shield won him All-Australian selection in 1964 and 1966 as a catcher. At the age of 18, his form in grade cricket for Glenelg led to his first-class debut for South Australia (SA) against Tasmania in early 1962. Chappell replaced West Indian Gary Sobers who was selected for a Test match in the Caribbean.
The aggressive style of Sobers and SA captain Les Favell heavily influenced Chappell during his formative years in major cricket. In 1962–63, Chappell made his initial first-class century against a New South Wales team led by Australian captain Richie Benaud, who was bemused by the young batsman's habit of gritting his teeth as he faced up; to Benaud, it looked as if he was grinning. Chappell spent the northern summer of 1963 as a professional in England's Lancashire League with Ramsbottom and played a single first-class match for Lancashire.
Read more about this topic: Ian Chappell
Famous quotes containing the words family, early and/or career:
“Like many another romance, the romance of the family turns sour when the money runs out. If we really cared about families, we would not let “born again” patriarchs send up moral abstractions as a smokescreen for the scandal of American family economics.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)
“The Americans never use the word peasant, because they have no idea of the class which that term denotes; the ignorance of more remote ages, the simplicity of rural life, and the rusticity of the villager have not been preserved among them; and they are alike unacquainted with the virtues, the vices, the coarse habits, and the simple graces of an early stage of civilization.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)