Happy birthday Ian Michael Chappell.
Thank you.
For many of us, those 70’s punks who undid their top three buttons and grew a moustache, this guy was our hero. He gave Australian cricket a rock ‘n roll backbeat it still thumps along to today. Still able to deliver a two fingered salute in sausage gloves, his was the take no prisoners attitude which transformed Australian cricket, finally stood up to the Australian version of the conservative, self-serving control of what Botham called the “pink gin brigade” and fought for the game, his country and his players … even in the face of the deity of Bradman.
His batting average might be considered only reasonable by the lofty standards of today’s game, played as it is on drop in tame pitches and shortened boundaries with high tech bats as thick as his was wide and helmets and bowling restrictions. Sure, the modern superstars might well have been successful against Wes Hall, Charlie Griffith, John Snow etc … but they wouldn’t be skiting of averages in the fifties. Reverse the time slip. What would Chappell have done today?
To judge him by his batting average would be to entirely miss the point.
He made a career out of the fight, batting in the heat of the engine room, after the ship had hit an iceberg and the band had started playing the first chords of Auld Lang Syne. So many times in at 1 for not much.
It was then the shit in his eye sparkled strongest, dazzling the quickest bowlers into doubt, taming opposition captains with a resilience we all hoped we could garnish into our own game on suburban parks, with our copycat Grey Nicks.
It was a legacy he would expand into words spoken and written in commentary of those who followed, always forthright, not always agreeable but undeniably consistent of the man.
He once said all current players should get down on one knee at the mention of Kerry Packer’s name. If that be so, it’s the Mecca job for “the fecking cowboy!”
All hail Chappell