On 29 January 1824 a cricket match was played at Hobart between officers of the Van Diemen's Land garrison and a civilian side — the earliest documented cricket fixture in Tasmania and the second-earliest in Australia (after Sydney 1804). The fixture is the foundation entry of Tasmanian cricket and the second link in the early Australian cricket map.
Hobart had been founded as a British penal settlement in 1804 and grown rapidly through the early 1820s. Cricket arrived with the garrison in the mid-1810s but the first preserved fixture report is from January 1824, in the Hobart Town Gazette. The Officers won 86 to 53 in a single-innings match. Cricket continued in Hobart through the nineteenth century; the first inter-colonial fixture (Tasmania v Victoria, 1851) was Australia's first.
1804
Hobart founded
1804
First documented cricket in Sydney
29 Jan 1824
First documented cricket in Hobart
Feb 1851
First Australian inter-colonial match: Tasmania v Victoria
The earliest documented cricket in Tasmania — a foundation entry of Australian cricket's regional spread.
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1811-07-04
The 1811 Lord's season was the leanest of the Middle Ground years. With the Napoleonic blockade at its tightest, willow scarce, professionals diverted to militia service and the betting public's purses thin, only fourteen major matches were played at Lord's all summer. The 1811 season is the clearest measure of cricket's wartime contraction.
Officers vs Civilians
1812-12-15
By the close of 1812 cricket was being played regularly in both Madras and Bombay — the earliest documented fixtures in either Presidency. Garrison officers and civilian East India Company servants ran the matches; the Madras Gazette and Bombay Courier preserved the earliest scoresheets. The Calcutta game (documented 1804) had been joined by all three Presidency capitals.
Kent vs MCC
1813-09-09
On 9-10 September 1813 Kent played the MCC at the Vine, Sevenoaks — the first post-war major match at the historic Kent ground and the start of the Vine's revival as a regular major venue. The Vine had hosted little major cricket since 1808; the September 1813 fixture marked its return to the front rank.