On 30 September 1854 the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the future cathedral of Australian cricket, hosted its first match. The Melbourne Cricket Club, displaced from its previous home by Australia's first steam railway line, had been granted a fresh ten-acre site in Yarra Park the year before. The ground would within a generation become the most important cricket venue in the southern hemisphere.
The original Melbourne Cricket Club ground was on what is now the site of Flinders Street Station. The arrival of the railway in the early 1850s — Australia's first steam line, linking Flinders Street with Sandridge (Port Melbourne) — required the cricketers to move. La Trobe's grant of land in Yarra Park, on the banks of the Yarra River, was both compensation and a long-term gift.
The new ground was prepared during the southern winter of 1853-54. The first match was a small affair, but the club timed the opening for the start of the Australian spring cricket season.
The Melbourne Cricket Club, founded in 1838, had played its early matches on a series of grounds in central Melbourne. By 1853 the colonial authorities had decided to lay Australia's first steam railway across the club's existing ground, and Governor Charles La Trobe granted the club a ten-acre area in Yarra Park as compensation. Building work continued through the autumn and winter of 1853-54; the playing surface was levelled, a perimeter fence erected and a small pavilion constructed. The first match on the ground was played on 30 September 1854 — a domestic Melbourne Cricket Club fixture, with no opposing colony involved. Within eighteen months the new MCG had hosted its first inter-colonial fixture, against New South Wales in March 1856; within seven years it would be the venue of the Stephenson tour's opening match on Christmas Day 1861, drawing a three-day aggregate of 45,000 spectators that established its place as the principal cricket arena of the colonies.
1853: La Trobe grants the MCC ten acres in Yarra Park
1853-54: Levelling and fencing of the new ground
30 Sep 1854: First match played on the new MCG
Mar 1856: First inter-colonial fixture at the ground (Vic v NSW)
25 Dec 1861: Stephenson's English XI play their first tour match here
1838
Melbourne Cricket Club founded
1853
MCC granted ten-acre site in Yarra Park
30 Sep 1854
First match played on the new MCG
Mar 1856
First inter-colonial match at the MCG
Dec 1861
Stephenson's tour opens at the MCG, drawing 45,000
“The MCG was built in 1853, when the Melbourne Cricket Club was granted the land on which the club now stands after being forced to move from its previous site to make way for Australia's first steam railway line.”
The unspectacular first match in 1854 began the history of what is now the most famous cricket ground in the world outside Lord's.
The MCG has been continuously occupied since 1854. The first Test (1877), the first ODI (1971), the 1992 and 2015 World Cup finals, and the Boxing Day Test that anchors the Australian summer all trace back to the ten acres granted in 1853 and first used in September 1854.
Yorkshire v Essex
1932-06-16
On 15-16 June 1932 Herbert Sutcliffe (313) and Percy Holmes (224*) put on 555 for the first wicket against Essex at Leyton, breaking the world first-class record for any wicket and adding a layer of folklore — including a scoreboard that read 554 for several minutes and a hastily reversed declaration — that has clung to the partnership ever since.
Australia v England
1933-02-14
With the fate of the Bodyline series in the balance and England 216 for 6 chasing 340, Eddie Paynter checked himself out of a Brisbane hospital where he was being treated for acute tonsillitis, taxied to the Gabba in pyjamas and a dressing gown, and batted for nearly four hours to score 83. England drew level on first innings, won the Test by six wickets and the series 4-1.
Australia
1934-09-25
Days after the 1934 Oval Test, Bradman fell seriously ill with appendicitis that progressed to peritonitis. With antibiotics not yet available, he was given little chance of survival; his wife Jessie left Adelaide on a sea voyage to England prepared for the worst. He recovered after weeks of intensive nursing in a London nursing home and returned to first-class cricket the following Australian summer.