Ian Chappell 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 also 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.
Greg Chappell the summer of 1964–65, Chappell suddenly grew ten centimetres in seven weeks and within twelve months had shot up to 189 cm. With this greater physical presence, Chappell was able to dominate schoolboy matches; in one of his matches for the school's First XI he scored a double ton and combined with classmate (and future Test teammate) Ashley Woodcock to put on more than 300 runs for the first wicket against Scotch College. Chappell's cricket coach at Prince Alfred, former first-class player Chester Bennett, described Chappell as "possibly the finest all-round schoolboy cricketer in my experience...he could go far in