1.
Australia national cricket team
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The Australia national cricket team, represents the country of Australia in international cricket. It is the joint oldest team in Test cricket history, having played in the first ever Test match in 1877, the team draws its players from teams playing in the Australian domestic competitions – the Sheffield Shield, the Australian domestic limited-overs cricket tournament and the Big Bash League. The national team has played 801 Test matches, winning 377, losing 215, drawing 207, Australia is ranked the number-one team overall in Test cricket in terms of overall wins, win-loss ratio and wins percentage. As of 29 March 2017, Australia is ranked third in the ICC Test Championship on 108 rating points, the Australian cricket team has played 898 ODI matches, winning 554, losing 303, tying 9 and with 32 ending in no-result. They currently lead the ICC ODI Championship, having done so for 130 of 161 months since its introduction in 2002. Australia have made a record seven World Cup final appearances and have won the World Cup a record five times in total,1987,1999,2003,2007 and 2015 and it is also the second team to win a World Cup on home soil, after India. The team was undefeated in 34 consecutive World Cup matches until 19 March at the 2011 Cricket World Cup where Pakistan beat them by 4 wickets. Australia have also won the ICC Champions Trophy twice – in 2006 and in 2009 – making them the first and the only team to become back to back winners in the Champions Trophy tournaments. Test cricket, which occurred between Australia and England at the time, was limited by the long distance between the two countries, which would take several months by sea. Most cricketers at the time were either from New South Wales or Victoria, with the exception of George Giffen. A highlight of Australias early history was the 1882 Test match against England at The Oval, in this match Fred Spofforth took 7/44 in the games fourth innings to save the match by preventing England from making their 85-run target. This was the start of the famous Ashes series in which Australia, to this day, the contest is one of the fiercest rivalries in sport. It participated in between the 1897–98 English tour of Australia and the 1910–11 South African tour of Australia, Victor Trumper became one of Australias first sporting heroes, and was widely considered Australias greatest batsman before Bradman and one of the most popular players. He played a number of Tests at 49 and scored 3163 runs at a high for the time average of 39.04. His early death in 1915 at the age of 37 from kidney disease caused national mourning, the Wisden Cricketers Almanack, in its obituary for him, called him Australias greatest batsman, Of all the great Australian batsmen Victor Trumper was by general consent the best and most brilliant. Led by Peter McAlister, who was attempting to gain control of tours from the players. This led to six leading players walking out on the 1912 Triangular Tournament in England and this was the last series before the war, and no more cricket was played by Australia for eight years, with Tibby Cotter being killed in Palestine during the war. Test cricket resumed in the 1920/21 season in Australia with a touring English team, captained by Johnny Douglas losing all five Tests to Australia, the team continued its success on the 1921 Tour of England, winning three out of the five Tests in Warwick Armstrongs last series
2.
England cricket team
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The England cricket team is the team that represents England and Wales in international cricket. Since 1 January 1997 it has been governed by the England and Wales Cricket Board, England and Australia were the first teams to play a Test match, and these two countries together with South Africa formed the Imperial Cricket Conference on 15 June 1909. England and Australia also played the first One Day International on 5 January 1971, Englands first Twenty20 International was played on 13 June 2005, once more against Australia. As of 9 March 2017, England has played 983 Test matches, winning 351, the team has won The Ashes on 32 occasions, the same number as their opponents Australia. England has played 683 ODIs, winning 332, and its record in major ODI tournaments includes finishing as runners-up in three Cricket World Cups, and also in two ICC Champions Trophys, England has also played 89 T20Is, winning 43. They won the ICC World Twenty20 in 2010, and were runners-up in 2016, England are currently ranked fourth in Tests, fifth in ODIs and fifth in T20Is by the ICC. England currently holds the record for the highest ever ODI total of 444, such matches were repeated on numerous occasions for the best part of a century. In 1846 William Clarke formed the All-England Eleven and this team would eventually compete against a United All-England Eleven with annual matches occurring between 1847 and 1856. These matches were arguably the most important contest of the English season if judged by the quality of the players, the first overseas tour occurred in September 1859 with England touring North America. This team had six players from the All-England Eleven, six from the United All-England Eleven and was captained by George Parr, with the outbreak of the American Civil War, attention turned elsewhere. English tourists visited Australia in 1861-62 with this first tour organised as a venture by Messrs Spiers and Pond. Most matches played during tours prior to 1877 were against odds and this first Australian tour were mostly against odds of at least 18/11. The tour was so successful that George Parr led a tour in 1863–64. James Lillywhite led a subsequent England team which sailed on the P&O steamship Poonah on 21 September 1876 and they would play a combined Australian XI, for once on even terms of 11 a side. The match, starting on 15 March 1877 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground came to be regarded as the inaugural Test match, the combined Australian XI won this Test match by 45 runs with Charles Bannerman of Australia scoring the first Test century. At the time, the match was promoted as James Lillywhites XI v Combined Victoria, the teams played a return match on the same ground at Easter,1877, when Lillywhites team avenged their loss with a victory by four wickets. The first Test match on English soil occurred in 1880 with England victorious, – The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia. As a result of loss the tour of 1882–83 was dubbed by England captain Ivo Bligh as the quest to regain the ashes
3.
Dave Gregory (cricketer)
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David William Gregory was an Australian cricketer of the 19th century. David William Gregory was a man of striking appearance, he looked like an Old Testament prophet not long out of training college and his was educated at the St James Model School, Sydney. In 1861, he joined the New South Wales public service, in 1883 he became inspector of public accounts and later paymaster of the Treasury for nine years until he retired. His family came to six other first-class cricketers, his brothers Ned, Charles and Arthur. He first appeared for New South Wales in 1866, for whom he would play 38 matches until his retirement in early 1883. Averaging a low 14.57 with the bat, including a debut first-ball duck, he managed five half centuries including strong knocks of 85 and 74 at Melbourne and Sydney. Of the former, it was noted that he was a marvel of patience at first and his score was a record at the time for New South Wales, and the match also saw the debut of his brother, Arthur. Despite his low average, however, it is illustrative of the conditions of the pitches on which he played that he would reach double figures on several occasions when members of his team failed. He would find success with the ball also, in his first match, he took 3/36 off 24.1 overs. and he would go on to take 29 wickets at 19.24, including a five-wicket-haul of 5/55. Gregory had a less than successful international career with bat or ball, in the 1st ever test match played at Melbourne he won the toss and elected to bat. His team won but he only managed 4 runs in 2 Innings and he enjoyed more success on his home grounds, scoring a career best 43 in the second Test against England in March 1877, having made only one earlier in the second. Dave Gregory made his Test debut batting at No,4 for Australia and he joined Charles Bannerman on 26 not out. They were the worlds 1st ever Test 3rd wicket partnership, Dave Gregory was 31 years 334 days old, the youngest test captain at that time. At Lords he made one of two substantial scores of the tour,42 in each innings against Middlesex. The other,57, came against the Players at the end of the tour. He did, however, captain his team during their victory over the MCC, Gregory led Australia at Melbourne against England in January 1879, scoring 12 in his only innings. He was succeeded in the captaincy by Billy Murdoch, having been the captain for all three of his Test appearances, with two victories and one defeat and he is the only Australian player to have made every international appearance as captain. Following what would be his last Test, Gregory captained New South Wales against the touring England team at the SCG in February, on the second day,10,000 spectators witnessed England collapse
4.
Charles Bannerman
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Charles Bannerman was an Australia cricketer. A right-handed batsman, he represented Australia in three Test matches between 1877 and 1879, at the domestic level, he played for the New South Wales cricket team. He is most famous for facing the first ball bowled in Test cricket, scoring the first run in Test cricket. This innings of 165 remains the highest individual share of a completed innings in Test cricket history. Bannerman was born in Woolwich, Kent, England to William Bannerman, not long afterwards the family migrated to New South Wales, Australia, where he joined the Warwick Cricket Club in Sydney. At the club he was trained by William Caffyn, a former Surrey cricketer who was then a representative of New South Wales, Bannerman started playing professional cricket in 1871, before making his first-class debut for New South Wales. In his first match, against Victoria, he made 32 and 3 runs, Bannerman played in the first three matches that were later designated as Test matches. The first of these, between Australia and England was held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in March 1877 and Australia batted first. Bannerman opened the Australian innings and is thus deemed to have had the honour of facing the first ball ever bowled in Test cricket. Only Harry Jupp scoring 54 on the second day bettered Charles Bannermans 39 runs on the second day, again retrospectively, his innings was the first-ever Test century. It remains the highest score by an Australian batsman on debut and his 165 runs, No other Australian exceeded 20 in either innings, as Australia won the match by 45 runs. For his feat, spectators at the match collected £83 7s 6d to present to him, Bannerman played in two more matches now recognised as Tests, the second in 1877 and the one in 1879. His Test record is 239 runs at an average of 59.75, at the end of the first Test on 19 March 1877 Charles Bannerman had become the first Test batsman to score 150 runs in a Test career. He finished the Test on 169, Charles Bannerman and Nat Thomson were the first ever international batting partnership and they made 2 runs together before Nat Thomson was bowled by Allen Hill for 1. Charles Bannerman was selected for the 2nd Test of the 1876–77 Series and he opened the batting at No.2 once again partnering Nat Thomson. He and Thomson added 29 for the first Wicket when Thomson was dismissed for 18, Charles was then joined by Australias wicket-keeper, batting at No. However, after batting for 55 minutes he was bowled by Allen Hill for 10 and he had now increased the record career score to 179. On the 3rd day Charles batted at No.3 and he came in when Australia were 88 for 1 to partner Nat Thomson
5.
George Ulyett
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George Ulyett was an English all-round cricketer, noted particularly for his very-aggressive batsmanship. A well-liked man, Ulyett was popularly known as Happy Jack, once musing memorably that Yorkshire played him only for his good behaviour, a fine all round sportsman, Ulyett played football in the 1882–83 and 1883–84 seasons as goalkeeper for Sheffield Wednesday. Born in Pitsmoor, Sheffield, Ulyett joined the local Pitsmoor club at the age of sixteen and, from 1871 to 1873, played as a professional in Bradford. In 1873, he made his Yorkshire debut, at Bramall Lane against Sussex, in his best batting year of 1883 Ulyett achieved the remarkable feat of scoring 1,562 runs – eleven runs from being the leading run scorer – without a single century. He took his career-best figures of seven for thirty against Surrey in 1878 and, in 1887, Ulyett was a member of James Lillywhite Juniors tour of Australia in 1876/77. If Ulyett, Emmett, and Hill are specimens of the best fast bowling in England, all we can say is, either they have not shown their proper form, or British bowling has sadly deteriorated. Not long after, however in an eleven-a-side first-class match against New South Wales, Ulyett also played in the first-ever Test match, staged at the MCG, during that tour. His first real action in Test cricket came when he held onto a catch off the bowling of James Southerton to dismiss Billy Midwinter for five. In bowling, Ulyett took three for 39 in the innings, his first wicket being that of Charles Bannerman. A short delay revealed the fact that Bannerman could no longer grip his bat properly, the Australian opener walked off, wincing from the pain in his bloodied right hand. George Ulyett, although never regarded as a bowler, could nevertheless do real damage on occasion. Bannerman was unable to field, and, in the second innings, in the second game, also at Melbourne, Ulyett showed his worth as a batsman, making 52 and 63 to secure an England win by four wickets. On Day 2 George joined A Greenwood when England were 72 for 4, George partnered Greenwood and Tom Emmett. His 52 was part of a total of 86, 2nd highest by a Test Player at that time. Thereafter, he was a pick for the England Test side. Ulyett played 25 Tests in total—it was by far the longest career of any England cricketer to play in that inaugural Test—and several times changed the course of a match. At Lords in 1884, in the innings, he returned an analysis of 39. 1–23–36–7 to reduce the Australians from 60/1 to 145 all out. Included in that haul was one of the most famous caughts-and-bowled ever taken, Ulyett sent down a straight half-volley to Bonnor, who drove at it with all his considerable might and got it right out of the middle of the bat
6.
Allen Hill
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Allen Hill played in the first-ever cricket Test, taking the first wicket. Hill also went on to umpire in the Test match played at Lords in 1890, Allen Hill was the son of Francis Hill, a Hand Loom Fancy Weaver, and Elizabeth Thornton. In 1851 Frank and Betty were living at Shaw Cross, Kirkheaton with 6 children, in 1861 they had moved to Cheesbourgh Fold with only Allen age 17, described as a Fancy Weaver, then living with them. Allen married Ellen Jessop in 1868 and in 1871 they were living at Common End, Lepton, Allens occupation at this time was described as Fancy Weaver. There was a son Frank born c.1869 who died in 1876 age 7, by 1891 Allen had moved to 3 Stanley Street, Leyland, Lancs. In that years census he was a widower, his wife Ellen having died in 1889, there were 4 daughters – Alice, Kathleen Mary, Gertrude and Mabel. In the 1901 census Allen was living at Fox Lane in Leyland with his 2nd wife Margaret, daughter of James Whittle, a coachman, & Ann Mills and she was some 18 years his junior. He would then be 57, shown in the census as 51, daughters Gertrude and Mabel were still at home along with Allens grandson Frank Hill born 1901. He began his career with Lascelles Hall and Kirkheaton clubs and, in 1863, became professional at Dewsbury and Savile and he played 139 matches for Yorkshire between 1871 and 1882. His highest score for Yorkshire was 49 versus Middlesex at Bramall Lane and his best bowling was 7 for 14 against Surrey at Argyle Street, in Hull in 1879. Hill played for the Gentlemen v Players, from 1874 to 1882 and he toured with Lillywhite to Australia in 1876–77. Allen Hill came out on the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 15-Mar-1877 as England became the 1st International Team to field, Allen Hill bowled the 2nd over of the Innings conceding the 1st run. In the 4th over he bowled Australia No,2 Batsman, Nat Thomson to take the honour of being the 1st Test Bowler to take a wicket, Allen Hill and Nat Thomson became the 1st Bowler/Batsman Partnership in Test Cricket. Later that day he was passed by James Southerton when he took his 2nd wicket, Allen Hill also achieved another first. When Australia were 40 for 1 Australia No,3, Tom Horan hit a delivery from England bowler Alfred Shaw, Allen played in the 2nd Test of the 1876-1877 Series. On the 2nd day Allen joined Tom Emmett when England 162 for 6 and he partnered Tom Emmett, Tom Armitage and England Captain, James Lillywhite, junior. At 259 for 8 Allen Hill was run out for 49 and he became the 3rd batsman to pass 80 runs in a career and his 84 was the 3rd highest at that time. Hill was a bowler with a roundarm action, which said was one of the best of its kind that can be recalled
7.
Tom Kendall
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Thomas Kingston Kendall was an Australian cricketer, who played in two Tests in 1877, including the inaugural Test which was played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in March 1877. Kendall was a lower-order left-handed batsman and a slow-to-medium pace left-arm bowler and it was Kendalls bowling that induced the first Test match stumping, when he dismissed Alfred Shaw, via Jack Blackhams wicketkeeping. Kendall played in Melbourne club cricket for Richmond, and represented Victoria once, in 1881, he moved to Hobart where he was employed by The Mercury newspaper. Tasmania did not have regular first-class cricket at that point and his subsequent cricket career was limited to four matches on a tour to New Zealand in 1884 and he later stood as an umpire in Tasmanian cricket. List of Victoria first-class cricketers List of Tasmanian representative cricketers Mahony, sundry Extras, The Hambledon Press, London
8.
Billy Midwinter
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William Evans Midwinter was a cricketer who played four Test matches for England, sandwiched in between eight Tests that he played for Australia. Midwinter holds a place in cricket history as the only cricketer to have played for Australia. Midwinter made his Test debut in the first ever Test match in 1877, playing for Australia and he took five wickets in the first innings against England in Melbourne. Billy played in the 2nd test of the 1876-1877 Series, Australia won the toss and elected to bat. He came out when Australia were 60 for 4 to join debut man Thomas Kelly, Billy batted with all 3 test debutants, Thomas Kelly, Frederick Spofforth and Billy Murdoch. He scored 31, his top score at the time and became the 3rd Test Batsman to score 53 runs in a Test Career, later that year he returned to England, playing for WG Graces Gloucestershire County Cricket Club. He didnt return to the tour, instead remaining with Gloucestershire until the 1882 season and he was selected to tour with the England team visiting Australia in 1881/2, playing four Tests, and then in 1882/3 Midwinter emigrated back to Australia, joining Victoria. He was selected for Australia to play the one-off Test after England had won the first Ashes series in 1883/4 and this makes him the only man to play for one international side, then another, and then return to his original international team. His batting performance at Test level was not exceptional, but his first class performances for Victoria, by 1889, Midwinters wife and two of his children had died, and his businesses were failed or failing. He became hopelessly insane and was confined to Bendigo Hospital in 1890 and he was then transferred to the Kew Asylum, where he died later that year. He was buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery, list of cricketers who have played for two international teams The Midwinter file, Graham Parker, Wisden 1971 Cricinfo page on Billy Midwinter Brief profile of W. E
Australia
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