Trevor Chappell

Trevor Martin Chappell (born 12 October 1952) is a former Australian cricketer, a member of the South Australian Chappell family which excelled at cricket.

He played 3 tests and 20 One Day Internationals for Australia.

He ended up making 1,268 runs at an average of 52.8 and taking 106 wickets at an average of 14 – the first "double" of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in the Central League since 1961.

Over the summer of 1969/70 he toured the West Indies with the Australian Schoolboys XI, a team that also included Gary Gilmour, Gary Cosier and Ian Davis.

During the tour he came down with chicken pox.

He recovered to score 52 against St Kitts.

Chappell also played for South Australia in the Australian Schoolboys Cricket Council Championships in Sydney.

Chappell debuted for South Australia in the 1972–73 season, replacing Ken Cunningham who had to drop out for business reasons.

He later recalled:

"When I first got picked for South Australia, Ian said, 'You got to decide what sort of a player you want to be – whether you want to be an aggressive, attacking player, or more like a grafting sort of player.' I had to think about that and that I'm not really a free hitter of the ball, so the choice I made was I was going to be more of a grafter."

His career began well, scoring 67 on debut.

He made half-centuries in his next two games, but struggled thereafter and was eventually dropped from the South Australian side.

Chappell:

"When I first played for South Australia, I did all right. Then I got injured right at the start of the second season – I broke my nose and cheekbone in a fielding accident. I damaged my shoulder as well. I couldn't throw very well. Fielding has always been one of my main skills and I lost confidence in the fielding. I wasn't getting any runs, I wasn't bowling much in those days, and I wasn't fielding terribly well either. I ended up playing all of the first-class season and had a bad season. I still couldn't get runs in South Australia the following season but I'd go to England and get runs. I got dropped from the South Australian team."

In 1975 Chappell played for Walsden in the Central Lancashire Cricket League over the English summer.

It was a highly successful season for Chappell, who found his medium pace bowling effective on English wickets.

Over the 1975–76 Australian summer Chappell toured South Africa as part of DH Robins XI, a special invitational side managed by Richie Benaud.

Chappell's teammates included David Steele and Geoff Howarth.

Chappell later said "I ... did all right" on the tour.

Highlights included scoring 69 against Transvaal.

He returned to England in 1976 and enjoyed another successful English summer in the Lancashire League, this time for East Lancashire.

Chappell then received an offer to play for the Scarborough Cricket Club in Perth and moved to Western Australia.

He had a run of strong games with scores of 48, 88, 43 and 76.

This led to him playing four first class games for Western Australia in 1976–77, in which he scored two fifties at an average of 40.

In 1977, he played for East Lancashire again in the Lancashire League.

In 1977, Chappell signed to play for World Series Cricket along with his brothers.

He had failed to make the first team for WA for the 1977–78 season when Dennis Lillee approached him.

Chappell later recalled, "Lillee said to me, "Bad luck about not making it in the WA team.

Don't worry, something better might come along." I had no idea what he meant. And a few days later [Austin] Robinson, Dennis' manager, rang and said, "Do you want to join World Series Cricket" and I said, "Yeah, where do I sign?""

His career was overshadowed, however, by an incident in 1981 in which he bowled an underarm delivery to New Zealand cricketer Brian McKechnie to prevent the batsman from hitting a six.

He won the Sheffield Shield with New South Wales twice, and scored a century for Australia against India in the 1983 World Cup.

After retiring from first class cricket in 1986, Chappell went on to become fielding coach for the Sri Lanka cricket team in 1996, and in 2001 became coach of the Bangladesh cricket team.

He later was the coach of the Singapore cricket team.

Chappell was the youngest of the Chappell cricketing brothers, his two elder brothers being Ian and Greg, and the grandson of former Australian captain Vic Richardson.

Chappell grew up playing cricket in the backyard with his brothers, and like them was coached by Lynn Foster and attended Prince Alfred College.

Greg Chappell later recalled, "I was going to be every bit the tyrant to Trevor that Ian had been to me. But TC was his own man. Trevor was quiet and unassuming, but if you pushed him too far, he'd explode. That's TC through and through: very passive most of the time, easy going, but push him too far and there's an explosion coming."

Chappell's childhood hero was Keith Miller.

Throughout his early playing career he was a batsman, although his excellent fielding at cover also brought him attention.

"I figured the cover region was the area where the ball went more often than not, so I thought it was a good spot to field", he later said.

"It keeps you occupied and always in the game."