Cricket in Australia
A record 1,311,184 people played cricket across Australia in 2015–16, an 8.5 per cent increase on 2014–15 – placing cricket at No.1 as the current top participation sport in Australia. Women participation also reached record figures in 2015–16, growing nine percent to 314,936 players. According to Cricket Australia's annual report of 2014–15, 1,208,360 Australians played formal, organised cricket during the year, an increase of nine percent over the previous year. Separately, official audience data shows that 93.6% of Australians watched at least some cricket on TV in 2010–11 calendar year.
List of Australia national cricket captains
Australia participated in the first Test match in cricket in 1877, the first One Day International in 1971 (both against England) and the first Twenty20 international in 2005 (against New Zealand). In addition to officially sanctioned international matches and tours organised by the Australian Cricket Board (now known as Cricket Australia), there have been two major rebel Australian sides. In the 1970s many of Australia's leading players signed up for Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket and played in a number of SuperTests against other international sides. Then in the mid-1980s there were two rebel Australian tours to South Africa, which was at that time banned from official competition because of the apartheid regime then in force there. The captains of those Australian sides are also listed below.