Trevor Chappell

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.

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 November, Chappell was selected in the Australian one-day side against New Zealand. Australia lost the game. Chappell managed only 12 runs and took 0–21 with the ball. He did not bat or bowl in his second game.

Chappell was kept in the team to play India, taking 1–14 and scoring 14. His figures for his next game were 0–27 and 6, then 1–40, 2–42, 1–21, 14 and 14.

He managed to keep his place in the squad for the finals. In the second final Chappell took 2–21. He is most remembered for what happened in the third final.

Chappell played in the fourth final, taking 1–41.

"I'd never really expected to play Test cricket – three family members had already played, what were the chances of a fourth?" said Trevor Chappell. "Then I was involved in World Series Cricket, throw in the underarm and the odds were getting longer. So when it did happen, it was a great thrill."

This match passed into legend. Chappell scored 27 over 161 minutes, helping Australia to a first innings total of 401, notably taking part in a 94-run partnership with John Dyson. England were dismissed for 174, Kim Hughes enforced the follow-on, and at one stage England were 7–135 in response. Then Ian Botham began one of the most famous counter-attacks in Test cricket, scoring 149 not out and helping England reach 356. Chappell was never called upon to bowl. Australia had to score 130 to win. Chappell came to the wicket when Australia were 1–13 – he and Dyson took them to 56, with Chappell making 8 off 56 balls. He was then dismissed, which triggered a collapse; Australia lost the match by 18 runs.

He did participate in a 219-run stand against Tasmania for NSW. He later took 4–35 against WA in a McDonald's Cup match, and in a crucial Sheffield Shield game against Victoria he took 4–12 and made 47 runs.

The highlight of Chappell's summer came during the Sheffield Shield final where his second innings effort of 4–45 was crucial in helping bowl New South Wales to victory. It was the state's first Shield in a long time.

He was selected for a game against India and promoted to opener – he responded by scoring 110. However, he found less success in later games and never played for Australia again after the tournament.

I preferred to open the batting or bat in the top order somewhere. But I probably wasn't good enough to bat at No. 3 or No. 4, which is why I was where I was – down at the bottom. It just depended if we had couple of good openers so I wasn't going to get a go there and at No. 3 or No. 4 or even at 5, 6, so 7 is where I got a go in the international side.

In 2013, he said about coaching in Singapore that "I have never had my best 11 together during a training session. It is very disjointed and players offer excuses not to train, some of which are probably not legitimate. The players are amateur, so there isn’t always the motivation to come to training. The work schedule is long and players can’t leave work early for cricket here. So, as coach it means having to do things over and over again because we can’t get guys together." "I wouldn’t mind being more involved with helping the New South Wales juniors", he said. "Unfortunately, the cricket associations seem to look at players from the 1970s and ‘80s as from a bygone era. I have tried a few times to get a more prominent gig in Australia but it never progressed anywhere."

He was then selected to play in the Australian side for the third test against New Zealand, replacing Shaun Graf as 12th man. He had to make way for the next test when Graf returned from injury.

Chappell was made 12th man for Australia's early games.

From July to September 2009, he undertook a 50-day stint as coach of Singapore for its ICC World Cricket League Division 6 tournament, held in Singapore.

Chappell then became coach of the 1st XI cricket team at The King's School, Parramatta over the Australian summer. He also began coaching the Singapore National Cricket Team. In 2006, he also participated in a game to celebrate former teammate Robert Holland's 60th birthday, as well as Greg Matthews, David Gilbert, Rick McCosker and Greg Dyer at Toronto NSW.

In 2003, Chappell, along with his brothers, were honoured by the South Australian Cricket Association when a new stand in the Adelaide Oval was named the Chappell Stand after the cricketing brothers.

He was a fielding coach for Sri Lanka from 1996–2000 and had a short stint as national coach for Bangladesh. "I’m lucky coaching came along because I couldn’t bear the thought of office work", he said later. He says coaching Bangladesh was a very rough job because of the language barrier.

In 1987, he and Brian McKechnie reunited to play a double wicket game together in New Zealand.

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 used to be the national coach of the Singapore cricket team.

Chappell retired from first-class cricket in 1986; however, he continued to play grade cricket with the North Sydney cricket club, leading them to a premiership. He went on to coach the Gordon Women's cricket club.

During the 1985–86 summer, Chappell was suspended for two premiership matches in Sydney's grade competition for disputing an umpire's decision.

During the opening game of the 1984–85 season Chappell was again dropped from the NSW Shield team down to 12th man. However he was kept in the side for the McDonald's Cup. Injuries to players and national selection duties meant Chappell found himself back in the team. New South Wales ended up winning both the Sheffield Shield and the McDonald's Cup that season.

Chappell's efforts over the summer resulted in a surprise selection for Australian's 1983 World Cup squad. He said at the time:

A series of indifferent performances led to Chappell being dropped by New South Wales during the 1983–84 season. He was kept on in the one day team and scored 54 against the Australian Capital Territory.

Chappell became infamous after bowling an underarm delivery when playing for Australia during a match against New Zealand in 1981.

This form helped Chappell be selected on the squad to tour England for the 1981 Ashes; he was chosen over Doug Walters, who had been in excellent form for Australia over the summer. (There were several other batsmen apart from Walters who scored more first class runs at a better average than Chappell who were overlooked, including Jon Moss, Peter Sleep, Richie Robinson and Rick McCosker.)

Greg Chappell chose not to tour England in 1981, and there was much speculation over who would take his spot at number three in the batting line-up. During the early stages of the tour it was thought Martin Kent would take his place at number three, and Chappell only play one-dayers and tour games. However, Kent displayed poor form while Chappell was more consistent – 47 against Somerset and 91 against Gloucestershire.

At the beginning of the 1981–82 summer, Chappell was still mentioned as a Test prospect. "Trevor Chappell cannot be left out of calculation", wrote one journalist. "He is resourceful, can bat early or late, bowls a penetrative medium pacer and fields brilliantly." However, Chappell never played Test cricket again. "Being on a tour that is not very successful probably damns your chances to get another go", he later reflected.

I thought I was in with a chance but I didn't want to build up my hopes. The way I worked it out, it was to be me or Ken MacLeay and I knew I had a few years experience on him, having played Tests and more Sheffield Shield. This is the biggest thrill apart from my 1981 Test selection in England and helping bring back the Sheffield Shield to NSW last year.

Chappell married Lorraine Gavin in Canberra in 1981; Graeme Watson was his best man.

"There is not a lot non-cricketing that I have done really", he said in a later interview. "I'm not married and don't have any kids, so that is a very short story. I was married, shortly after the underarm actually, in March 1981 and then divorced before the 1980s had finished."

At the beginning of the 1980–81 summer, Chappell's bowling spell of 3–22 helped NSW defeat Queensland.

This form helped earn Chappell selection in the Australian XI one-day team for the International Cup that summer (he played in three games with a top score of 14) and also on the Australian XI in the West Indies in 1979.

When World Series Cricket ended in 1979, Chappell moved to Sydney and started playing for the club Gordon. He started off the season with 55 for a Rick McCosker XI against a Ross Edwards XI in a trial game. This ensured his selection in the New South Wales side for the first Sheffield Shield match that summer, meaning Chappell had now played for three states. He was preferred to non-WSC-aligned batsman John Dyson, which caused some controversy at the time.

Over the 1978–79 season Chappell mostly played for the WSC Cavaliers, a team of players of various nationalities who were not selected for the top three WSC teams, competing in the Cavaliers Cup.

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

In the same year, 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?""

Chappell played ten games for WSC Australia in the Country Cup in 1977–78, scoring 339 runs, more than any other Australian batsman, although his average was only 26.

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 1975 Chappell played for Walsden in the Lancashire League over the English summer. It was a highly successful season for Chappell, who found his medium pace bowling effective on English wickets. 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 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 for him included scoring 69 against Transvaal.

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

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.

Trevor Martin Chappell (born 12 October 1952, Glenelg, South Australia) 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 won the Sheffield Shield with New South Wales twice, and scored a century for Australia against India in the 1983 World Cup. His career was overshadowed, however, by an incident in 1981 in which he bowled an underarm delivery to New Zealand cricketer Brian McKechnie to stop the batsman from hitting a six.