#first tour

4 incidents tagged

Vinoo Mankad's All-Round Tour of Australia — 1947-48

India v Australia

1948-02-06

Vinoo Mankad's first overseas tour was a masterclass of all-round cricket. On the 1947-48 tour of Australia he scored 583 Test runs at 44.84 (centuries in the third and fifth Tests at Melbourne, 116 and 111), took 17 Test wickets with his slow left-arm, ran out Bill Brown twice for backing up too far at the non-striker's end — coining the now-famous term 'Mankading' — and finished with over 1,400 first-class runs and 50 wickets across the trip.

#vinoo-mankad#india#1947

⭐Serious

Lala Amarnath Leads Independent India to Australia — 1947-48

India v Australia

1947-11-28

Lala Amarnath became Independent India's first Test captain when he led the tour party to Australia in November 1947, only weeks after Partition. Vijay Merchant's withdrawal had thrown the captaincy open; Amarnath was confirmed by the new Indian Cricket Board ahead of departure. India lost the series 0-4, but Amarnath's personal contributions — 228 not out v Victoria and 172 not out v Queensland — and his courteous handling of Bradman's century moment at Sydney made him a popular figure on tour.

#lala-amarnath#india#captain

⭐Moderate

Major Warton's Tour — How the First English Side Got to South Africa, 1888-89

R.G. Warton's XI (England) v South African sides

1888-12-01

The first English cricket tour of South Africa was organised not by MCC or any official body but by a retired British army officer, Major Robert Gardner Warton, working with two Cape Town agents (Billy Simkins and William Milton) and underwritten by the shipping magnate Sir Donald Currie. Warton went to England in 1888 to recruit professionals; the resulting team — captained by the amateur C. Aubrey Smith — sailed in November and played the matches that were later, in 1903, given retrospective Test status as South Africa's first Tests.

#major-warton#south-africa#1888-89

⭐Mild

Heathfield Stephenson's All-England Eleven — The First English Tour of Australia, 1861-62

England (All-England XI) vs Australian colonial sides

1862-03-01

Twelve English professionals captained by Surrey's H.H. Stephenson sailed on Brunel's SS Great Britain to play the first cricket tour ever undertaken to Australia. Funded by the Melbourne caterers Felix Spiers and Christopher Pond, the team played 12 matches against odds of 18 and 22 between Christmas Day 1861 and March 1862, drawing 45,000 spectators across three days for the opening fixture against Victoria and laying the commercial foundation of all future Anglo-Australian cricket.

#hh-stephenson#spiers-and-pond#australia-tour-1861-62