Van Diemen's Land v Port Phillip, 1851

The NTCA Ground, previously known as the Launceston Racecourse, where the match took place

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. Nevertheless, the game grew relatively quickly. The first recorded match in Australia took place in Sydney in 1803 between the military and civilians; according to the journalists Jim Kilburn and Mike Coward, in a review of Australian cricket, the New South Wales governor ordered that equipment for the game should be made in government workshops.[1] Similar early games between the military and civilians took place in Tasmania and Victoria.[1] The vast distances between the colonies initially prevented intercolonial cricket, but clubs quickly came into existence in the population centres and an element of competition soon arose.[2] 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.[3] By 1832, the Sydney Gazette was able to state that "cricket was now the prevailing amusement of the colony and that no gentleman could expect to 'dangle at a lady's apron strings' unless he could boast of his cricket prowess."[4] Matches began to be covered by newspapers, and the sport's popularity spread with the population.[1][5]

One of the most prestigious clubs in Australia was the Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC), 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.[6] Although club membership was intended for the social elite, similar to that of leading English clubs at the time, its ability to secure the best cricketers in its teams made it enormously popular with spectators; the intention of the MCC seems to have been to spread cricket's popularity in a similar way to the Marylebone Cricket Club's efforts in England.[3]

Cricket was less well-established in Tasmania, then known as Van Diemen's Land.[3][7] Although cricket was probably played soon after the island was settled in 1803, and was reasonably popular by the mid-1810s,[7] the first recorded matches took place only in 1825.[8] There was little organisation or competition; there were few clubs, and none in Hobart, in the south of Tasmania, until 1832, or in Launceston, in the north, until 1841.[7] Partly, this may have been due to an insistence among Tasmanian clubs that only the social elite could play cricket. The cricket historian Jack Pollard suggests that Tasmanian cricket failed to thrive in its early years because of "the strange reluctance of the strong, prestigious clubs in Hobart and Launceston to hire professional players to coach and strengthen their teams".[4] With these main cities 200 kilometres (120 mi) apart, it was difficult to establish competitive games; despite an abandoned attempt in 1841, the first match between North and South Tasmania did not take place until 1850.[7] These difficulties prompted Launceston cricketers to seek opponents from the Australian mainland rather than from Hobart.[7]

On 12 January 1850, William Philpott—who was born in England and emigrated to Australia in 1844 before establishing himself as a leading figure at the MCC[9]—proposed at a special MCC meeting that a cricketing challenge be sent to Launceston for a match between teams representing Port Phillip and Van Diemen's Land.[notes 2][11]

An invitation was sent to the Launceston Cricket Club in February with a view to playing that March. The invitation was accepted but the match was delayed when the acceptance letter was not posted in time to reach the steamer transporting mail.[notes 3][13] The MCC repeated their invitation later in 1850.[13] While the match was being arranged, legislation passed in the United Kingdom to separate the Port Phillip District, which was to be renamed as Victoria, from the colony of New South Wales. When news of this much anticipated decision reached the colony late in 1850, two weeks of celebrations were arranged in Melbourne to mark independence.[10] The delayed cricket match, now scheduled for February 1851, became part of the general festivities, although formal independence did not come about until later in 1851.[10][14][15] Furthermore, the fixture was to be the first Australian intercolonial match and was later considered the first first-class cricket match in Australia.[5][14]

The Melbourne Club decided that the team should wear red, white and blue colours on their clothing for the game.[16][17] Although they had a long time to prepare, the MCC had some difficulty in assembling enough men to represent Port Phillip; many potential players were unable to spare the time to travel to Van Diemen's Land. Even as the team prepared to depart, only ten people had been found, and the eleventh, Duncan Cooper, only joined as they left on the steamer Shamrock.[18][19] The eleven Victorian players, accompanied by many acquaintances, both men and women,[13] arrived in Launceston on 9 February.[20] On the evening of their arrival, they attended a dinner at the Cornwall Hotel with 100 paying guests. The following day, the team won a match against Bishopthorpe College.[20] There was little time to practise before the intercolonial game.[16]

The Port Phillip team were favourites before the game began.[6] This was partly owing to their bowlers' use of overarm bowling at pace;[16] by contrast, bowlers in Tasmania preferred underarm bowling at a time when roundarm bowling was permitted in the rest of the world.[notes 4][7] The match was played at the Launceston Racecourse ground, but the state of the ground was such that the umpires were unsure of the best place to pitch the wickets.[1][16] The Victorian team were dismayed by the state of the pitch, which looked extremely difficult to bat on, and later received an apology from the government of Tasmania.[21]

The team for Van Diemen's Land was drawn from across the island: three players came from Hobart, five from Launceston and three players from other individual clubs.[13]

Port Phillip's Thomas Ferrier Hamilton (seen here in 1873), the highest scorer of the match

John Marshall, winning captain of Van Diemen's Land team

The match began on 11 February 1851 and was scheduled to be played to a finish irrespective of time.[22] It was well attended, and booths were set up to accommodate spectators.[23] According to Ray Webster in his analysis of all Australian first-class matches, spectators were not charged for admission;[24] the attendance was approximately 1,000 on the first day and 1,500 on the second. In common with all cricket games at the time, each over consisted of four deliveries. Similarly, there were no boundaries to the pitch, so runs could be scored only by running between wickets, and not by hitting a boundary.[25] Although the colonies were officially called Van Diemen's Land and Port Phillip at this point, press reports generally referred to the teams as "Tasmania" and "Victoria". The match was closely followed in Melbourne.[17]

John Marshall captained the Tasmanian team, and William Philpott captained the Victorian team.[22] The toss was won by Marshall, who sent in Victoria to bat.[22] The match started at 11 am.[13][22]

Following the conclusion of the match, the Port Phillip cricketers won further matches at Bishopthorpe College and may have played further games in Tasmania.[23] Social events continued during and after the game; one journalist, Edmund Finn, wrote: "From the time of landing to the time of embarking the same spirit continued—dinners, balls, musical parties, picnics and every description of entertainment was got up to give a hearty welcome to the strangers from Port Phillip."[27] On the evening of the first day's play, there was a dinner and ball at the Cornwall Hotel;[27] the day after the match, a public ball organised by the Tasmanian hosts took place at the Cornwall Hotel, where the visiting cricketers were staying. The event—attended by more than 350 people, including the Victorians, many of the supporters that had accompanied them, and many of the leading figures in Launceston society—continued into the very early morning.[23][26] The Tasmanian and Victorian players, accompanied by the Launceston Brass Band, walked together to the wharf from where the visiting players were to depart.[27] The Port Phillip team returned on the Shamrock and reported upon their return that they were "well entertained and well beaten".[28] The Tasmanian bowling—described by the Victorians as "slow and peculiar in character"—was their main explanation for the defeat.[6] One of the umpires from the game, C. J. Weedon, retained a ball used in the match. His family later donated it to the Launceston museum.[17]

Over the following years, the Tasmanian and Victorian teams played several matches. A return match was arranged almost at once. In February 1852, nine Tasmanians travelled to Melbourne and, reinforced by three men from Launceston who were resident in Melbourne,[10] were defeated by the Victoria team by 61 runs at the Melbourne Cricket Club ground.[notes 6][14][29] A "deciding game", played two years later at Launceston, was won by Tasmania, but the Victorians only brought eight players and had to use local players to both make up the numbers and to act as the team scorer. The Tasmanians were captained for the final time in first-class cricket by John Marshall, who was 58 years old by this time and had appeared as captain in all three games between the colonies.[10] In early 1858, a Victorian team returned to Tasmania and played two matches, both of which were later recognised as first-class.[30] In one, they defeated a team from Launceston, reinforced by four cricketers from southern Tasmania; they then beat a team from Hobart, composed only of southern Tasmanians.[notes 7] Although both defeats were heavy, the popularity of these games in Tasmania directly led to the formation of a new club, which later became the Southern Tasmanian Cricket Association; it began to organise and develop cricket in Tasmania.[31] Nevertheless, the Victorians were unimpressed by the cricket of the Tasmanians, and their inability to cope with roundarm fast bowling; the teams did not compete against each other regularly for 30 years. Tasmanian cricket remained less developed than that in the rest of Australia until at least the 1880s and failed to keep pace with changes in the game.[7]

Intercolonial cricket gradually spread over the next 20 years. The Victorian team began playing other colonies; their match against New South Wales in Melbourne in 1856 was the first between two mainland colonies.[32] In 1864, a representative Queensland team played New South Wales, although the match was not first-class—Queensland did not play a first-class game until 1893.[33][34] In 1871, Norwood Cricket Club in Adelaide arranged matches against Melbourne.[2]

The biggest stimulus to the growth of Australian cricket came from England. In 1861–62 and 1863–64, teams of English professional cricketers toured Australia;[2] the latter tour was organised by the Melbourne Club.[35] Neither of the teams played any first-class cricket and all the matches were played "against the odds"—the touring team contained eleven men but played against sides with 22 players. Even so, the games, and the two English teams, were enormously popular despite their superiority, even against the odds—the first team played 12 games, winning 6 and losing 2 with the remainder drawn, and the second team played 16 games, winning 10 and drawing 6.[36] Kilburn and Coward suggest that "the performances of the hardy band of professionals opened Australian eyes and stirred Australian ambitions".[2] Several English players remained in Australia to coach; their influence and the Australian desire to match the English cricketers led to a rapid improvement in the standard of cricket. By 1877, an Australian team was able to defeat an English team with equal odds in what was later recognised as the first Test match.[2]

Now, the match is recognised as the initial first-class match to be played in Australia.[17] At the time, it is likely that the players realised that the game was the first to take place between two Australian colonies, and was therefore a historic occasion.[37] Although there were attempts in Australia to identify first-class matches,[notes 8] no formal definition was applied in Australia until 1947. A meeting of the International Cricket Conference in 1981 agreed that all intercolonial and interstate matches played in Australia before 1947, including the 1851 match, should retrospectively be considered first-class.[37]

• Intercolonial cricket in Australia

• Clowes, Colin (2007). 150 Years of NSW First-class Cricket: A Chronology. Crows Nest, New South Wales: Allen & Unwin, for Cricket New South Wales. ISBN 978-1-74175-082-9.
• Donnelley, Paul (2010). Firsts, Lasts & Onlys of Cricket: Presenting the Most Amazing Cricket Facts. London: Hamlyn. ISBN 978-0-600-62173-7.
• Dunstan, Keith; Coward, Mike (1986). "Overseas Cricket: Australia". In Swanton, E. W.; Plumptre, George; Woodcock, John (eds.). Barclay's World of Cricket (3rd ed.). London: Willow Books in association with Barclays Bank PLC. pp. 72–73. ISBN 978-0-00-218193-8.
• Harte, Chris (1993). A History of Australian Cricket. London: André Deutsch. ISBN 978-0-233-98825-2.
• Hutchinson, Garrie; Ross, John (2004). 200 Seasons of Australian Cricket. Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia. ISBN 978-1-4050-3641-2.
• Jackson, Anne (2011). William Philpott Pioneer Victorian First Class Cricketer (PDF). Malvern, Victoria: Malvern Historical Society Inc. ISBN 978-0-9579586-6-1.
• Kaufman, Jason; Patterson, Orlando (February 2005). "Cross-National Cultural Diffusion: The Global Spread of Cricket". American Sociological Review. 70 (1): 82–110. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.458.2905. doi:10.1177/000312240507000105. JSTOR 414535.
• Kilburn, Jim; Coward, Mike (1986). "Overseas Cricket: Australia". In Swanton, E. W.; Plumptre, George; Woodcock, John (eds.). Barclay's World of Cricket (3rd ed.). London: Willow Books in association with Barclays Bank PLC. pp. 61–68. ISBN 978-0-00-218193-8.
• Plowman, Peter (2004). Ferry to Tasmania: a Short History. Dural, New South Wales: Rosenberg Publishing. ISBN 978-1-877058-27-1.
• Wynne-Thomas, Peter (1989). The Complete History of Cricket Tours at Home and Abroad. London: Guild Publishing. ISBN 978-0-060055-78-3. OCLC 440099345.

• The NTCA Ground official website