Ian Michael Chappell, the Australian Captain

Ian Michael Chappell, the Australian Captain who transformed Australian Cricket when the Aussies were in somewhat of a slide. Bill Lawry, the dour, determined skipper, who had to make an unfortunate exit from the Australian arena was replaced by Ian Chappell, an abrasive character who led from the front. After Richei Beanud, Ian was certainly the most aggressive leader who transformed Australian Cricket into a juggernaut. Of course, he was fortunate to have the services of Dennis Lillee, Jef Thompson, Max Walker as bowlers, and Greg Chappell, Red Path and Walters and the rest as batsmen to support his cause.

The gret Imran Khan rated Ian highly as a captain owing to his intricate knowledge of the game. When the Aussies toured the Windies in the seventies, Lillee broke down, so he had to depend on Jeff Hemmond and Max Walker to o the damage. He motivated these two bowles to destroy the Windies line up which had Roy Fredericks, Gorden Greenidge, L. Rowe, A. Kallicharan, Rohan Kanhai and Clive LLoyd.

He was not afraid to take chances as he had a magmificent bawlingh combination of both spin and pace alike. In the 69-70 season against the Windies, he had scored over 500 runs inclusive of three tons. He was flamboyant and extremely confident.

He really came to his own in the World XI series in 71-72 scoring four centuries. As Mr. Sunil Gavaskar says in his book, everytime a catch was taken and the bowler got a wicket he would run up to the bowler and fielder and embrace them.

He was rated above his brother Greg, but it was a dificult comparison. When Michael Holding who was called the Rolls Royce of fast bowling was posed the question "Who were the most difficult batsmen you have bowled to"?, his reply was Jeoff Boycott and Ian Chappell.

As Ian was an outgoing character, Bill Lawry rated him the best Aussie batsman when they toured South Africa in 69-70. As this tour was after a gruelling 5 match series, Ian was not a success in South Africa for various reasons.

When Ian left the Australian arena, he had left a void which was very difficult to fill, but left behind another sibling Greg to foster Australian Cricket.

If someone posed the question, "Who was the bettre skipper? Richie Beanud or Ian Chappell", I would not be able to answer that.