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 due to Chappell's assessment of Steve Waugh, who he described as "selfish" and as a captain, "ran out of ideas very quickly". Waugh responded by writing, "to say Chappell's criticism irked me would be an understatement." He categorised the criticisms as "personal" and noted that Chappell, "always sweated on my blunders and reported them with an 'I told you so' mentality". In 2006, Chappell released an anthology of his cricket writings entitled "A Golden Age". He is a regular contributor to Cricinfo.com. After leaving school, Chappell spent two years as a clerk in a sharebroker's office, which he left to