History of the Australian cricket team
After a discouraging loss to Nottinghamshire in the opening match of the tour, the Australians met a Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) team at Lord's on 26 May 1878.
Australia's upset win by nine wickets was "the commencement of the modern era of cricket", according to Lord Hawke.
In what turned out to be a match that was completed in one day, only 105 runs were scored with the Australian side emerging the victors by nine wickets.
In 1912 the Australian team toured England and played in the 1912 Triangular Tournament with their hosts and South Africa.
Australia toured USA and Canada in June to August 1913, playing five matches, four in Philadelphia and one in Toronto.
Their performance was impressive perhaps due to the Don Bradman factor as they won 13 of them and did not lose a single Test match.
Australian Test captains were Hassett, Johnson and the popular Richie Benaud who had an exceptional record during this period.
Richie Benaud captained Australia in 18 Test matches, Bob Simpson in 29 and Bill Lawry in 16.
Queenslander Allan Border, rated as one of the finest middle-order players in history, took over as captain and attempted a re-building process.
Border achieved the feat of scoring more than 150 runs in both innings of a Test during a tour of Pakistan during this decade.
Among these were fast bowler Craig McDermott, wicket keeper Ian Healy, Steve Waugh and batsman Dean Jones.
Cult heroes such as overweight Tasmanian batsman David Boon and Victorian bowler Merv Hughes also earned places in the team.
In the closing years of the 1980s, Australia won back the Ashes from England and began an era of dominance in that series which only ended in 2005.
These two aforementioned victories are considered to have signalled the genesis of the team's rise to dominance, though at that point they were still behind the West Indies and failed to win any Tests in India or Pakistan.
In 1986, Australia and India played out only the second tie in Test history, with Jones producing a famous double-century innings in sapping heat.
Australia's Record in Test Match Cricket 1990–1999 Australia's Record in ODI Cricket 1990–1999 The 1990s saw the dawn and twilight of many well-known Australian cricketers Shane Warne became a household name during the 1993 Ashes tour, Allan Border retired after playing South Africa at Durban in 1994, Glenn McGrath became famous as a metronome (and as a rabbit) during the 1994–95 tour of the West Indies, Ricky Ponting came onto the scene with 96 against Sri Lanka during 1995–96, Craig McDermott was forced to retire during the 1996–97 season, while Brett Lee appeared at the turn of the century.
Meanwhile, Australian cricket was run by three captains, Allan Border, Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh.
A year after losing to Sri Lanka in the final of the 1996 World Cup, Australia adopted a policy of fielding separate Test and one-day sides.
The defeat of the then-dominant West Indies on their 1995 tour of the Caribbean is viewed as the moment when Australia became the dominant side in the world.
Since then, in spite of a few occasions (specifically the 2005 Ashes series) the Australians have had an extremely high winning rate that compares favourably to the leading teams in history (much like the West Indies for the two decades prior).
The return series in 2006–07, was, however, a resounding success, with the Australians completing a 5–0 whitewash of the English, a feat not witnessed since Warwick Armstrong's side in 1920–21.
The Ashes were again lost 2–1 in England in 2009, this result reduced Australia to 4th in the ICC Test Rankings, their lowest ever position.
[citation needed] The Australian cricket team finally captured victory in the ICC Champions Trophy series after beating the West Indies in the final of the 2006 series and backed it up by winning their second straight ICC Champions Trophy by beating New Zealand in the 2009 edition in South Africa.
They reached the semi-final of the first Twenty20 World Cup in 2007 losing to the eventual champions India, but also lost to Pakistan and Zimbabwe in the group stages.
[3] In the 2009 World Cup they were eliminated in the qualification round after losing by six wickets to both the West Indies and Sri Lanka.
