Cricket in Australia
The Australian Cricket team is one of the best all rounder teams in the world. It is the joint oldest Test cricket team after playing the first ever Test matches against England in 1877 and they defeated them by 45 runs. As of January 2010 Australia has played 719 Test matches and has won 51.87% of these matches losing 20.87% and drawing 26.98% of their games. The Australian cricket team has a winning record against every Test nation.
Australia has made world cup history by appearing in the final 6 times and they have won the prestigious Cricket World Cup 4 times in 1987, 1999, 2003 and 2007. They also won the ICC Champions trophy twice in the years 2006 and 2009 which made them the only team to ever become back to back champions in the Champions Trophy tournaments. The Australian team also was leaders in the ICC Test Champions table for a majority of time since January 2001 when it was initially created. The South African team led this table briefly from January to May 2003 after which Australia took over the lead again. Since then though, Australia has dropped to the third position in the Test ranking after India and South Africa.
The Australian cricketing history is as rich and interesting as its country’s past. As mentioned before along with England they participated in the first ever Test match in 1877 and began its winning streak then by defeating England by 45 runs. One of the major highlights in Australian cricket was in the 1882 Test match played against England at the prestigious Oval. It is was in this match that Fred Spofforth took 7 wickets for 44 runs in the game’s fourth innings and defeated England by preventing them from achieving their 85 runs target. It was at this time that an English newspaper, The Sporting Times printed a mock obituary to state the death of English cricket and announced that “the body was cremated and the ashes taken to Australia”. This is what started of the famous Ashes Series which are played every two years and both the English and the Australian team play a number of Tests to decide the holder of the Ashes Cup.
Australian cricket is the birth place of some of the most celebrated cricket players in the world. Sir Donald “Don” Bradman, Rod Marsh, Dennis Lillee, Allan Border, Glenn McGrath, Steve Waugh, Shane Warne, Adam Gilchrist and Ricky Pointing. Most of the latter players mentioned retired from current world cricket and is one of the reasons why Australia has slipped to the third position in the Test rankings.
In 2002 the Australian Cricket team was named the World Team of the Year at the Laureus World Sports Awards to recognise their world record achievements in their test match wins and victories.