page_title: History of Australian cricket
hierarchical_section_title: History of Australian cricket
caption_attribution_description: English: Cricket match played at Melbourne Cricket Ground on 1 Jan 1864. Lithograph and watercolor.
context_page_description: The History of Australian cricket begins over 210 years ago. The first recorded cricket match in Australia took place in Sydney in December 1803 and a report in the Sydney Gazette on 8 January 1804 suggested that cricket was already well established in the infant colony. By 1826, clubs including the Currency Cricket Club, the Military Cricket Club and the Australian Cricket Club had been formed. Hyde Park and the Racecourse were the venue for these organised matches. The formation of clubs in Van Diemen's Land was not far behind with clubs formed in Hobart in 1832 and Launceston. In Western Australia a match was arranged in 1835 between the "builders" of the new Government House and a team of labourers and "mechanics". In Victoria in 1838, the Melbourne Cricket Club was formed – it would become arguably Australia's most exclusive and influential cricket club. In 1839, a club was formed in South Australia.
  Intercolonial cricket in Australia started with a visit by cricketers from Victoria to Tasmania in February 1851. The match was played in Launceston on 11–12 February with Tasmania winning by 3 wickets.
context_section_description: The History of Australian cricket begins over 210 years ago.  The first recorded cricket match in Australia took place in Sydney in December 1803 and a report in the Sydney Gazette on 8 January 1804 suggested that cricket was already well established in the infant colony. By 1826, clubs including the Currency Cricket Club, the Military Cricket Club and the Australian Cricket Club had been formed. Hyde Park and the Racecourse were the venue for these organised matches. The formation of clubs in Van Diemen's Land (later Tasmania) was not far behind with clubs formed in Hobart in 1832 and Launceston (1841).  In Western Australia a match was arranged in 1835 between the "builders" (probably architects and engineers) of the new Government House and a team of labourers and "mechanics" (an archaic term for trades people). In Victoria in 1838, the Melbourne Cricket Club was formed – it would become arguably Australia's most exclusive and influential cricket club. In 1839, a club was formed in South Australia.
  Intercolonial cricket in Australia started with a visit by cricketers from Victoria to Tasmania in February 1851. The match was played in Launceston on 11–12 February with Tasmania winning by 3 wickets. Another three matches between the two teams were played before 1854 but in time the crossing of Bass Strait became less attractive to the Victorians and the focus turned to the neighbouring colony of New South Wales. These matches attracted large crowds, including a crowd of 15,000 at a match in Sydney in January 1853. Boards of control were formed in the various colonies: New South Wales in 1857, Victoria in 1864 and South Australia in 1871.
caption: Cricket at the MCG in 1864
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "27", "Image YResolution": "27", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Centimeter", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2020:03:12 19:08:15", "Image ExifOffset": "156", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "294", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6219", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "903", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "658"}