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.
Ian Chappell Australia's Channel Nine and in the United States by MLB Network. He worked with Matt Vasgersian and former Cy Young Award winner John Smoltz. Chappell's first book was an account of the 1972 Ashes tour, "Tigers Among the Lions", followed by a series of books of cricketing humour and anecdotes published in the early 1980s. The more analytical "The Cutting Edge", an appraisal of modern cricket, appeared in 1992. Ashley Mallett's biography, "Chappelli Speaks Out" (published in the UK as "Hitting Out – the Ian Chappell Story") was written in collaboration with Chappell and released in 2005. It caused controversy