Victoria cricket team


The Victorian cricket team, who were named Victorian Bushrangers between 1995 and 2018, is an Australian first-class men's cricket team based in Melbourne, Victoria. The Victoria cricket team, which first played in 1851, represents the state of Victoria in the Sheffield Shield first-class competition and the Marsh One Day Cup competition. The team shares home matches between the Melbourne Cricket Ground and the Junction Oval.
The team is administered by Cricket Victoria and draws its players from Victoria's Premier Cricket competition and throughout the country. Victoria also played in the now-defunct Twenty20 competition, the KFC Twenty20 Big Bash, which was replaced by the franchise-based Big Bash League.
The Victorian cricket team is the second-most successful state team in Australian first-class cricket, having won 32 Sheffield Shield titles, the most recent of which was in the 2018–19 season. The Victorians have also claimed six One-Day Cups and four KFC Twenty20 Big Bash tiles.

History

The team's origins date back to the very start of Australian cricket when the Melbourne Cricket Club was formed in 1838, and in that same year an MCC team played its first match against the Victorian Military. However, the first official inter-colonial game was contested between Port Phillip and Van Diemen's Land in 1851, in Launceston.
Victoria was the dominant force in the early days of Australian first-class cricket, winning two of the first three Sheffield Shield tournaments, and most of its early domestic friendly games against the other states. The first game between the great rivals Victoria and New South Wales was played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in 1856.
The annual Sheffield Shield tournament first began in the 1892/93 season, contested by Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia. Victoria won that tournament by defeating both opponents twice each. During the history of the Shield, Victoria has won the competition 32 times, most recently in the 2018/19 season.
The Victorian Cricket Association, now Cricket Victoria, was founded in 1895 and since March 2018 has been based at its headquarters, the Junction Oval in St Kilda.
Victoria has featured a significant number of cricketing greats, such as Warwick Armstrong, Bill Woodfull, Bill Ponsford, Neil Harvey, Hugh Trumble, Lindsay Hassett, Dean Jones, Jack Blackham, Jack Ryder, Bill Lawry, Bob Cowper, Shane Warne, Keith Miller and Ian Redpath..
Victoria has been a powerful force in Australian cricket and the Australian cricket team has, at least until recent decades, never been short of Victorians in the line up.
The tradition of starting a cricket match at the MCG on Boxing Day also featured Victoria when they played New South Wales in 1965.
Victoria is the only first-class cricket team to have scored over 1,000 in an innings, which it achieved twice in the 1920s – 1,023 against Tasmania in 1922–23, and 1,107 against New South Wales in 1926–27.

Identity

Throughout its history, Victoria's dominant colour has been navy blue, either in full when playing One-Day or Twenty20 competitions or on predominantly white kits in first-class cricket. The team logo replicates that of Cricket Victoria and has done so since the organisation chose to cease referring to the Bushrangers nickname when describing the men's team. The current major sponsor of the team is the CitiPower.

Squad

Squad for the 2019/20 domestic season. Players with international caps are listed in bold.


Source:

Honours

First Class Batting Records for Victoria
MatchesPlayerRunsAverage
140Brad Hodge1047445.34
110Dean Jones962254.05
103Matthew Elliott947052.32
105David Hussey747645.58
85Bill Lawry661552.92
119*Cameron White659636.04
76Graham Yallop588146.07
58Lindsay Hassett553563.62
76Jason Arnberger550442.01
43Bill Ponsford541383.27

scored 6615 runs for Victoria and took 244 wickets at 22.46
First Class Bowling Records for Victoria
MatchesPlayerWicketsAverage
86Paul Reiffel31825.91
71Alan Connolly29726.07
94Tony Dodemaide28131.61
76Merv Hughes26730.59
101Ray Bright25235.00
41Chuck Fleetwood-Smith24624.52
75Jim Higgs24029.88
67Damien Fleming22130.20
62Max Walker22029.43
44Bert Ironmonger21524.60