South Australian paceman Brendan Doggett looks increasingly likely to become Australia’s 472nd Test cricketer when the 2025-26 Ashes series begins in Perth on Friday.
However the 31-year-old’s precise place in the Indigenous story of the Australian men’s Test cricket team is less clear cut, with his looming selection triggering an interesting debate around the exact history of Australian cricket.
Officially, the Rockhampton-born Doggett—a proud descendant of the Worimi people—will become just Australia’s third Indigenous Test cricketer if he is indeed selected alongside the second, Scott Boland, in the First Test XI to face England.
But as evidenced by the reaction to an article shared by NITV earlier this week, plenty of observers suggest perhaps this isn’t quite the case.
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“First team to tour England was all Aboriginal, was it not?” Commented one reader, pointing to the 1868 tour to England of an all-Aboriginal cricket team from from western Victoria that played 47 matches and featured the legendary all-rounder Jonny Mullagh, who was inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame in 2020.
“Correct...but they didn’t play Test cricket...that’s the difference,” replied another.
Therein lies the crux of the debate—none of the 1868 contests were considered first-class matches, let alone given Test match status.
In fact, Test cricket didn’t even become a recognised format of the game for another thirty years or so in the 1890s.
Retrospectively, many earlier international cricket matches were awarded Test status, but the first of those was the 1877 MCG match between a combined Australian XI and a team of visiting English professionals captained by England’s first Test captain, James Lillywhite.
Regardless, Friday shapes as an historic moment as two Australian fast bowlers of proud Indigenous heritage prepare to face the old enemy on Australian soil, a red Kookaburra in their hands.
In a poetic footnote, it wouldn’t be the first time the two men have faced English opposition together.
Back in 2018 both Boland and Doggett were selected in an Aboriginal XI touring party to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the first Indigenous Australian team to play in England.