1866 Melbourne Cricket Club v Indigenous XI

The match was one that truly captured the public’s imagination, with an almost unheard-of-crowd of more than 10,000 spectators attending the first day of play.

The significance of the match should not be underestimated.

1860s Australia was rife with racism, with the indigenous population regarded poorly by the white settlers, many holding the view that, as a race, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders would soon die out.

This match acted as step in the right direction towards unity and equality.

It was working on sheep and cattle properties throughout the country that led many of the indigenous population to develop an understanding and love of the game. Many displayed a natural talent for it, with matches taking place between sides connected to those properties they worked.

Johnny Mullagh was just one such indigenous cricketer that would go on to find fame – albeit posthumously – for his abilities.

Known as Unaarrimin but named Mullagh after the station where he worked, about - 16 kilometres north of Harrow in Victoria - the natural cricketer would go on to join the Melbourne Cricket Club as a professional.

The first record of the idea of a match between the Melbourne Cricket Club and an indigenous side comes in the MCC’s own book of minutes in May 1866.

Roland Newbury - the club’s pavilion keeper - requested the use of the ground for two days “for the purpose of a match with the native black eleven”, being the people from Victoria’s Western District.

The motive for the match was undoubtedly financial, and that such a match was proposed was a firm indicator that news of the prowess of indigenous players had spread to Melbourne. To stage such a match, a team would need to be organised.

And the man for the job was Tom Wills.

At that time, Wills was regarded as a star of the game. As a founding father of Australian Rules Football, it wouldn’t be dramatic to declare him as sporting royalty during this era.

Thus, on the one hand, he seemed the perfect fit to coach the indigenous team. Wills spent his childhood growing up with indigenous communities and could speak their language.

On the other hand, it was at the hands of Aboriginal peoples that his father Horatio – along with 18 others – was murdered in the worst massacre in the history of white settlers by Aboriginal peoples in Australia.

In 1866, Wills was earning income from cricket and, for him, there was undoubtedly a financial motive in taking on the responsibility of putting together the side to face the MCC.

However, it was also a remarkably selfless act. He turned his back on what was regarded as the biggest single match of any season, between Victoria and New South Wales to develop an indigenous team.

Wills went west to find, recruit and train players for the match, travelling to Edenhope and Harrow to gather those who worked as station hands.

Those he called upon were mostly Jardwadjali and Djab Wurrung peoples and they trained together at Lake Wallace, about 390 kilometres west of Melbourne.

Wills was delighted with the players he had at his disposal and was happy to boast of their prowess but, as the match got closer, his confidence caused the MCC to recruit players from outside the club to bolster its own ranks, something that would help it secure victory but also a tactic that earned it few plaudits from the general public.

That public sentiment was also affected by the MCC’s decision to refuse Wills’ request for the indigenous side to field first on account of the huge crowd in attendance.

The concern was that his players, who had never performed in front of such a gathering, would be put off, but the MCC declined Wills’ request.

When that refusal became public knowledge, it increased the sentiment in favour of the indigenous side.

Records of the details of the match itself are scarce, although a report in the Argus newspaper stated that several fours were scored that might otherwise not have been given as boundaries but for the fact that the crowds were so numerous that they spilled onto the field, thus restricting the size of the playing area.

The MCC won the match by nine wickets but it was the indigenous side that took the plaudits.

Thanks to the match, De Moore believed public perceptions among settlers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders underwent a perceptible change for the better.

By the following year – 1869 - the Central Board for Aborigines in Australia ruled it was illegal to remove any indigenous peoples from Victoria without Governmental approval, so ending the prospect of any future tours.

But for that short period of time between 1866 and 1868, those indigenous cricketers became true trailblazers of the game, with their legacy a beacon of hope for equality, long before recognised international matches were the norm.