Australian Aboriginal cricket team in England in 1868
In 1868, a cricket team composed of Aboriginal Australians toured England between May and October of that year, being the first organised group of Australian sportspeople to travel overseas. It would be another ten years before an Australian cricket team classed as representative left the country.
The Aboriginal cricket team pictured with their captain and coach Tom Wills at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, December 1866
Coach and captain Tom Wills, 1866
The Aboriginal team playing against Melbourne Cricket Club at the MCG, early 1867
Johnny Mullagh, the team's star all-rounder
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game that is played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a 22-yard (20-metre) pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. Two players from the batting team stand in front of either wicket, with one player from the fielding team bowling the ball towards the striker's wicket from the opposite end of the pitch. The striker's goal is to hit the bowled ball and then switch places with the nonstriker, with the batting team scoring one run for each exchange. Runs are also scored when the ball reaches or crosses the boundary of the field or when the ball is bowled illegally.
Shaun Pollock of South Africa bowls to Michael Hussey of Australia during the 2005 Boxing Day Test match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground
A medieval "club ball" game involving an underarm bowl towards a batter. Ball catchers are shown positioning themselves to catch a ball. Detail from the Canticles of Holy Mary, 13th century.
Evolution of the cricket bat. The original "hockey stick" (left) evolved into the straight bat from c. 1760 when pitched delivery bowling began.
Francis Cotes, The Young Cricketer, 1768