Things You Should Know About Crickets, Australia’s National Sport

You may refer to rugby as an Australian sport, but the whole country proudly engages in cricket. Statistics have revealed that cricket is the most popular sport in Australia since it is popular among men to women, elderly to children are keen to play it. The history of cricket in Australia began through the astronomical expedition of the reputable British navigator, Captain Cook. 

How The Cricket Landed In And Embraced Australia

It was known that cricket was a sport exclusively played by British aristocrats since around 1600’, and it was progressively spread worldwide through British colonization. 

Captain Cook landed on the coast of Victoria, on the east coast of Australia, in 1770 and created an opening gate for British colonization to the land of Australia. This fact becomes a pivotal story to the dissemination of British influence to Australia, including the cricket sport. 

A few decades afterward, in 1804, Sydney Gazette reported about the first cricket match held in 1803 in Australia. At the moment, cricket in Australia was already been set up. 

On the other hand, Australian cricket clubs were recorded in 1826, and around 1838-1839, the famous Melbourne Cricket Club started to form and function in Victoria. It was contagiously touching the Southern and Western parts and all over the nation-wide. 

That was how Australia started to embrace cricket. Furthermore, they had the first match between the intercolonial where Victoria (Port Phillip) and Tasmania (Van Diemen’s land) participated in 1851. This kind of match became gradually common in the whole nation transversely. 

International cricket tours commenced when the first English tour in Australia happened around 1861-62. The Australian team consisting of 13 Aboriginal stockmen, became the first Australian cricket team to land a reciprocal visit on an English tour in 1868. 

Names like Johnny Mullagh, Charles Bannerman, Billy Murdoch, The ‘Demon Bowler” Fred Spofforth, Jack Blackham, and George Giffen were the prominent cricket players at the beginning of the international tours. 

Between 1877 to 1892, Australian cricket’s reputation rose internationally. Specifically, in 1882, an official test match witnessed the Australian cricket team beat the English team cricket on English soil. 

The history of Cricket in Australia has recorded that Australian cricket had its golden years between 1890 and the start of World War I. More remarkable cricketer profiles arose: Jack Gregory, Bert Oldfield, and the respected Sir Donald Bradman. 

Related: Australia’s Greatest Athletes: Here’s What You Need to Know!

Quick Facts About Cricket

As the second most loved sport in the world, the sport has three alternative forms of the game, which are: test cricket, ODI (One Day International) cricket match, and T20I (T20 International) cricket. 

women participated playing cricket by the early 18th century in England, notably in Surrey, Hampshire, and Sussex. 

Specifically in Australia, cricket has won all nation’s hearts, with no exception for women. In Australia, the first Australian women’s match was established by Tasmanian in 1894, followed by the foundation of the Australian Women’s Cricket Association in 1931. 

Basic Things You Should Understand To Play Cricket

The number of teams and players: There should be two teams in every match—both consist of 11 players on the field, with one captain. 

Some of the Rulings:

• At least one inning for each team to take turns in batting, fielding, and/or bowling. 
• To win the match, a team should score as many runs as possible before the fielding team has 10 wickets. The team with the most runs wins. 
• It is the batman’s job to score runs as many as possible. The batman gets 4 runs by hitting the ball to the boundary line along the ground or over the boundary line to score 6 runs, hitting the ball, and running to the wicket for 1 run through one full length of the pitch before the field team can shoot the wicket, approach the other end. 
• A bowler of the fielding team’s role is to bowl the ball to the batsman, and it is the batsman who welcomes and shoots the ball with their bat.
• The field team is allowed to get the batsmen out to limit their runs by shooting the wicket with the ball when performing bowling, grabbing fully on the batsman’s shot, slapping the batman’s leg in front of the wicket, or else before the batman runs to the other pitch, the field team shot the wicket. 

Called to be the lucky cricketers, the history of cricket in Australia from the earlier moment until today shows that the Australian cricket team constantly holds the reputation as one of the most competitive and the strongest in the three variations of crickets around the world. 

Learn more about how competitive Australian sporting teams and individuals are worldwide through unique sports in Australia.