South Australia
Cricket is the most popular summer sport in South Australia and attracts big crowds. South Australia has a cricket team, the South Australian Redbacks, who play at Adelaide Oval in the Adelaide Park Lands during the summer; they won their first title since 1996 in the summer of 2010–11. Many international matches have been played at the Adelaide Oval; it was one of the host cities of 2015 Cricket World Cup, and for many years it hosted the Australia Day One Day International. South Australia is also home to the Adelaide Strikers, an Australian men's professional Twenty20 cricket team that competes in Australia's domestic Twenty20 cricket competition, the Big Bash League.
Cricket in Australia
The Australian team took part in the first one day international on 5 January 1971, once again also against England at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Since then, the team has maintained a good record in one day internationals, winning five Cricket World Cups, more than any other national team.
Following the end of World Series Cricket, from 1979 to 1980 the Australian season featured a triangular series of one day internationals, featuring the Australian team and two touring teams. The first incarnation of this tournament was called the World Series Cup and included night cricket, coloured uniforms and a white ball. In 1994–95, the tournament included an Australia A cricket team, due to the perceived weakness of the invited Zimbabwe team. For the 1996–97 season, the World Series Cup was replaced by a series of tournaments named after a major sponsor, including the Carlton and United Series, the VB Series and the Commonwealth Bank Series. The successor series followed a similar format.
Australia and New Zealand co-hosted the 1992 Cricket World Cup, and the 2015 Cricket World Cup. In 1992, for the first time, the tournament featured the innovations already common in Australian one-day matches such as night cricket and coloured clothing. The tournament featured nine nations, expanded to include a South African team recently admitted back into world cricket. Australia despite starting firm favourites, performed poorly, failing to make the semi – final stage. Pakistan defeated England in the final in front of 87,182 spectators at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
The 2015 Cricket World Cup was the 11th Cricket World Cup, jointly hosted by Australia and New Zealand from 14 February to 29 March 2015. Fourteen teams played 49 matches in 14 venues, with Australia staging 26 games at grounds in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. The final match of the tournament took place at the Melbourne Cricket Ground between co-hosts New Zealand and Australia in front of a record crowd of 93,013.