History of the Australian cricket team

The History of the Australian cricket team began when eleven cricketers from the colonies of New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria formed an eleven to play a touring team of professional English cricketers at Melbourne in March 1877. Billed as the "Grand Combination match", the game is now known as the first Test match. Encouraged by a 45-run victory, the colonists believed that they had enough cricketing talent to take on the English on their own soil. A team organised and managed by John Conway, a former Victorian player, toured England during the 1878 season. After a discouraging loss to Nottinghamshire in the opening match of the tour, the Australians met a Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) team at Lord's on 26 May 1878. Australia's upset win by nine wickets was "the commencement of the modern era of cricket", according to Lord Hawke.

In 1865, a match was arranged between a team of Aboriginal cricketers and European settlers from various pastoral stations; the indigenous team won. The playing of cricket by indigenous people of the Western District reflected their changing circumstances. At this time there were no formal associations.

The European population gave Aboriginal players nicknames; for example, Johnny Mullagh worked at the Mullagh station. Others were referred to by names like Bullocky, Dick-a-Dick, Sundown, and Red Cap. In 1878, the Aboriginal number two was nicknamed Jim Crow and another one was called Mosquito (see photos in Georges Goulvent Le Cam, Australie naissance d'une nation (Australia, Birth of a Nation), Presses universitaires de Rennes, France, 2000).

Thomas Wentworth Wills was a key figure in the development of colonial cricket and Australian rules football. In November 1866, Wills became the Captain and Coach of the indigenous cricket team. The very first Australian cricket team that played overseas was the 1868 Aboriginal cricket tour of England.

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