The first recorded cricket match in Australia took place on 11 and 12 February 1851. Teams from Van Diemen’s Land and Port Phillip District played the first cricket match between two Australian colonies. The match was incorporated into celebrations marking the separation of Port Phillip from New South Wales in 1851 as the colony of Victoria.
About Van Diemen’s Land v Port Phillip, 1851 in brief
The first recorded cricket match in Australia took place on 11 and 12 February 1851. Teams from Van Diemen’s Land and Port Phillip District played the first cricket match between two Australian colonies. It took place at the Launceston Racecourse, known now as the NTCA Ground, in Tasmania. The match was incorporated into celebrations marking the separation of Port Phillip from New South Wales in 1851 as the colony of Victoria. Following this match, intercolonial cricket became increasingly widespread. Cricket in Australia became more popular and was given a boost when teams of English cricketers began to tour the country. It is uncertain precisely when and how cricket began to be played in Australia. It may have arrived along with the First Fleet from England but no records document this. Cricket was probably played after the island was settled in 1803, and was popular by the mid-1810s. There was little organisation or competition; there were few clubs, and none in Hobart, south of Tasmania, until 1832. By 1832, the Sydney Gazette was able to state that no gentleman could expect to ‘dangle at a lady’s apron strings’ unless he could boast of his cricket prowess. The sport’s popularity spread with the population. One of the most prestigious clubs in Australia was the Melbourne Cricket Club, which was formed in 1838, only three years after the founding of Melbourne. The MCC dominated cricket in Australia for the rest of the century. It seems that cricket seems to have been spread in a similar way to the Marylebone Cricket Club’s efforts in England.
The first recorded match in Sydney in 183 between the military and civilians took place in Tasmania and Victoria. The vast distances between the colonies initially prevented inter colonial cricket, but clubs quickly came into existence in the population centres and an element of competition soon arose. A combination of the presence of the British military, the attraction of English pastimes that did not require sophisticated venues or practices, and a desire to develop a society similar to that of Britain made cricket an attractive outlet for Australians. The game was less well-established in Tasmania, then known as Van Dieman’s Land, less than less than a year after the colony was established. There were only a handful of clubs among the elite among the Tasmanian social elite, and this may have been due to an insistence that only the elite could play cricket. The Tasmanian team needed 36 runs to win the match. The next morning, the home team scored the required runs for the loss of one more wicket, recording a three-wicket victory. The match, which had been keenly anticipated, was a great attraction and was followed closely in the press in Melbourne. It was played on a pitch that made batting difficult. As was usual practice at the time, overs comprised four deliveries and there was no set boundary. The Victorian team found the home bowling difficult to face, on account of its unusually slow pace; in their first innings, they scored 82, assisted by a large number of extras.
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