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.
Crusaders Australia
Crusaders Australia is a wandering cricket team founded by Swan Richards OAM, David Richards OAM and the late Ray Steele and the former Australian wicket keeper, late Ben Barnett in 1977 who undertake bi-annual tours around to help facilitate the development of promising Australian cricketers and the Outright foundation which helps the youth development and the long form of the game, that is Test Cricket by pairing these young men with and against some first class players. They play against some of the major schools around Melbourne every week.