Cricket in Australia

Did You Know?

• The 2017–18 National Cricket Census showed 1,558,821 Australians engaged in cricket competitions or programs, a 9% increase from the previous year.
• 30% of cricket's participants were female in 2017–18, and 6 in every 10 new participants were female.
• More than 2.3 million people attended cricket during the 2017–18 summer, surpassing the record of 1.8 million set in 2016–17.

History

Cricket has been played in Australia for more than 210 years. The first recorded match took place in Sydney in December 1803, and a report in the Sydney Gazette on 8 January 1804 indicated that cricket was already well established in the colony. Intercolonial cricket began with a visit by Victorian cricketers to Tasmania in February 1851; the match in Launceston on 11–12 February was won by Tasmania by 3 wickets. The first English team tour to Australia occurred in 1861–62, organised by Spiers and Pond, followed by another in 1863–64 led by George Parr. In 1868, a team of Aboriginal cricketers became the first Australian team to tour England, playing 47 matches with 14 wins, 19 draws, and 14 losses; King Cole contracted a fatal case of tuberculosis during the tour. The 1876–77 season included a match between a combined XI from New South Wales and Victoria and the touring Englishmen at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 15–19 March, later recognised as the first Test match, won by Australia by 45 runs thanks to an unbeaten 165 by Charles Bannerman. The first representative tour of England by Australia occurred in 1878, and a return visit in 1878–79 is remembered for a riot. By the 1880 tour, when Australia played the first Test in England at The Oval, international tours were well established. A famous victory on the 1882 tour led to a satirical obituary in The Sporting Times, stating that English cricket had died and the ashes would be taken to Australia; the next English tour (1882–83) was dubbed the quest to regain The Ashes. The Sheffield Shield, the premier first-class competition, was established in 1892 by the Australasian Cricket Council.

Administration

Cricket Australia (CA) is the principal national governing body, headquartered in Jolimont, Melbourne. It was established in 1905 as the Australian Board of Control for International Cricket and is incorporated as an Australian Public Company limited by guarantee. CA oversees talent development through grassroots programs and cricket academies, and its initiatives include infrastructure development, coaching, and player welfare programs.

Organisation of cricket in modern Australia

The Australian national team is one of the most successful in international cricket. Along with England, Australia was a founder nation of the Imperial Cricket Conference, later the International Cricket Council. Australia generally plays a test series against a visiting team and a one-day series between two other teams at home each summer, and tours overseas for the remainder of the year. Australia has participated in international cricket since 1861 and competed in the first Cricket World Cup in 1975. The men's national team is ranked No. 1 in Tests, No. 2 in ODIs, and 2nd in T20Is. Australia has won six World Championship cups, the most by any country: first in 1987 under Allan Border, and most recently in 2023 under Pat Cummins, after a span of 8 years. The first Test match was played on 15 March 1877 between an Australian representative team and England. Australia is the most successful Test cricketing nation by percentage of matches won. The ICC Test Championship is a ranking scheme overlaid on all international matches. The most famous bilateral trophy is The Ashes, first contested in 1882 between Australia and England; other trophies are named after great players from the two competing nations. In late September 2021, Cricket Australia announced it would postpone its men's test match against Afghanistan indefinitely, originally scheduled for 27 November in Hobart, to prompt Afghanistan to rethink their approach to women's sports after reports that Taliban rulers would not allow women to play cricket.

In Australian culture

A 2007 survey by Sweeney Sports reported that 59% of the Australian public have an interest in cricket, second to none. Cricket is a mass participation sport: a census for the 2003–04 season found 471,329 participants, including 47,780 females. In 2015–16, a record 1,300,000 Australians played formal, organised cricket, an increase of nine percent over the previous year, making cricket Australia's biggest participant sport. The position of Australian Test cricket captain is regarded as one of the most important roles in Australian sport, often said to be second in stature behind the Prime Minister. Steve Waugh was also nominated as an Australian Living Treasure by the National Trust of Australia, as was Don Bradman before his death in 2001. Cricket plays an important role in Australia's national identity, particularly in relation to the United Kingdom, and the national team has been said to represent de facto Australian foreign policy, especially with Asian subcontinent nations. Cricket is the only one of the nation's three most popular sports to maintain a truly national following, as Australian rules football and rugby league have largely regionally divided followings. Official audience data shows that 93.6% of Australians watched at least some cricket on TV in 2010–11. Australia's victory over New Zealand in the 2015 Cricket World Cup Final was the most-watched sports match ever in Australia at the time, peaking at 4.218 million viewers nationally; the second innings averaged 2.404 million in the five capital cities and 3.285 million nationally. The 2015 semi-final between Australia and India peaked at 3.196 million viewers on the Nine Network.