When the cricketers of Melbourne Stars and Renegades, Sydney Sixers and Thunder and Hobart Hurricanes walk onto Ballarat’s Eastern Oval this weekend, they won’t just be playing the first WBBL games in Victoria for more than 1000 days.
The participants in the world’s premier women’s Twenty20 competition will also be retracing some storied and, until recently, forgotten steps by the Aboriginal First XI famed for going to England in 1868 and also playing at the MCG two years earlier.
This will be significant for all, but particularly so for the First Nations players involved: Hobart’s Emma Manix-Geeves (Palawa), Ella Hayward from the Renegades (Jawoyn), the Thunder’s Anika Learoyd (Gumbaynggirr) and Ash Gardner (Muruwari) for the Sixers.
Australia’s first internationals: the Indigenous cricketers who toured England in 1868.
Untouched by historians for decades, and only discovered through the ever-expanding digital newspaper archive of Trove, is the revelation that the last games ever played by that Aboriginal First XI, on their return home to western Victoria in early 1869, were at the Eastern Oval.
While matches in Melbourne had previously been documented, and it had been known that a final planned fixture in Hamilton was cancelled, the accounts in The Ballarat Star add significant layers to the closing chapters of Australia’s first international touring team.
Over four days in Ballarat, the team led by Unaarrimin, otherwise known as Johnny Mullagh, and coached by Charles Laurence played a two-day game against Ballarat Cricket Club, followed by a single wicket individual competition to round things off. On day one, the visitors were kept waiting by tardy locals.
“The match between the first eleven of the Ballarat Cricket Club and Laurence’s black team was commenced on the Eastern Oval, on Saturday, when 1200 or 1500 people assembled to witness the play and the after sports,” The Star’s day one report reads.
“Eleven o’clock had been fixed for the play to begin, but the local club was true to its venerable reputation for being punctually behind, and though the match was not begun till an hour and a quarter after the appointed time the captain of the Ballarat Cricket Club had not even then put in an appearance.”
Consistent with the way the team progressed over its time in England, the correspondent reports that Mullagh’s team were “much improved in their play since they were here before, and their fielding on Saturday was generally good”. Even so, the local XI managed to put together a tally of 213 before the First XI batted briefly.
After a Sunday of rest, Ballarat CC excelled with the ball early on, dismissing the First XI for a mere 92. Sent in again, they fared far better second time around, reaching 1-127 (Laurence 59, Mullagh 21) by the time stumps were drawn. This day was watched by the biggest crowd of the week.
“The crowd, by the bye, was larger than on Saturday, over 2000 people having gathered, including the large number of boys that climbed over the fence without paying,” The Star recounts.
“The crowd was decidedly lively too. When Charlie was given out, loud roars of dissent arose, as it such noises were oil any effect among cricketers, whose law is that the umpire, right or wrong, must be obeyed.
“The run out was very close, no doubt, but no one stood so well to see, or ought to have been paying so much attention as the man whose verdict the crowd rebelled against so uselessly and so foolishly.”
Finally, on the Tuesday, a single wicket contest was arranged between locals and visitors. Watched by a smaller crowd of around 500, the Ballarat cricketers made a mere 19 between them, and saw their collective score passed by Johnny Cuzens (Zellanach) on his own.
Ballarat’s Eastern Oval today.Credit:Daniel Brettig
The day was rounded off by the athletic contests and other games, such as Dick-a-Dick’s (Jungunjinanuke) knack for parrying cricket balls with a shield and hunting stick.
“Prizes were subscribed for several events in leaping and running; Mr Braithwaite, of the Pavilion hotel, giving £5 towards the fund. The blacks displayed their feats with native weapons during the afternoon, Dick-a-Dick’s parrying of the cricket ball attracting as usual great attention. No matter how straight or swift the throw was, he managed either to dodge or turn off the balls.”
Financial returns for the week were modest, allowing both parties to more or less break even, but foreshadowing the fact that the final scheduled game by the team in Hamilton was to be cancelled, and that the First XI would never again reappear.
But if the last appearance of the team together on the cricket field was made at Ballarat’s Eastern Oval a little more than 153 years ago, then the image of Zellanach defeating a collective of BCC players alone provides one final triumph to what remains the most extraordinary tale in Australian cricket’s history.
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