Double Headers

89 5: Australia - First home of the geographical double-header Inter-state double-headers When the competition for the Sheffield Shield began in December 1892, only three states (or colonies, as they then were) took part – New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. But first-class cricket had already been played in one of the other Australian colonies – in Tasmania, where Australian first-class cricket began with a game against Victoria at Launceston in February 1851. Before the 1892/93 season was out, two other colonies had also made their first-class debuts, Western Australia playing its first game at Adelaide at the end of March 1893, and Queensland following a week later with a match at Brisbane against New South Wales. Because of their distance from the main centres, as well as the lower standard of their cricket, these other states were not deemed to be of the same status as the ‘Big Three’, and they each had to wait their turn before being admitted to the Shield competition – Queensland in 1926/27, Western Australia in 1947/48, and Tasmania in 1977/78. In its pre-Shield days, Western Australia’s first-class cricket consisted largely of matches by the state side on occasional tours eastwards, later supplemented by visits from overseas Test tourists. Meanwhile first-class cricket in the two more easterly non-Shield states was kept alive by means of regular contests against their nearest neighbours – Queensland with NSW, and Tasmania with Victoria – with occasional matches against the other ‘Big Three’ states. From the mid-1890s a pattern developed, no doubt designed to maximise attendances and thus receipts, of NSW and Victoria playing matches against the ‘junior states’ over a holiday period – either the Christmas/New Year period, or else the Australia Day holiday towards the end of January. But if these dates were the most lucrative for the matches against junior states, they were also the best dates for playing Sheffield Shield matches. And so on Australia Day in 1894 the almost-inevitable double-heading began when Victoria played NSW in a Shield game at Sydney, while at the same time putting out a side against Tasmania at Melbourne. Double- heading by sides representing the same geographical entity thus began in Australia over 15 years before the first instance in England. The first-class status of matches between the Big Three states and their junior rivals was confirmed in 1908 when the Big Three agreed that all interstate matches should be ranked as first class. 81 No exception to this principle was stipulated for matches when one of the participating states was not at full strength, or was playing in another first-class match elsewhere. The Australia Day game in 1894 was the first of 43 double-headers in Australia, the last of which took place in January 1957. Here are the details of these instances, with the double-heading team in bold type, and the results expressed in terms of the double-heading side: 81 Chris Harte: A History of Australian Cricket , Andre Deutsch, 1993, pp 232-233.