Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that can help answer the question.
Query: Does Australia play Cricket?
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.
Cricket is the most popular sport in the highly populous Indian subcontinent area, notably in Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka.. The deadline for submissions for the initial sports programme has passed for the 2024 Summer Olympics, but hosts Paris will have an opportunity to propose events up until the IOC board meeting following the 2020 Summer Olympics.
The 2006–07 cricket series between Australia and England for The Ashes was played in Australia from 23 November 2006 to 5 January 2007. Australia won the series and regained the Ashes that had been lost to England in the 2005 series. The five Tests of the series were played at Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Melbourne and Sydney. In winning, Australia completed a 5–0 "whitewash", the first time this had happened in an Ashes series since 1920–21. The series was also notable for the retirement of four significant Australian players, namely Justin Langer, Damien Martyn, Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne.
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striking the ball bowled at the wicket with the bat, while the bowling and fielding side tries to prevent this and dismiss each player (so they are "out"). Means of dismissal include being bowled, when the ball hits the stumps and dislodges the bails, and by the fielding side catching the ball after it is hit by the bat, but before it hits the ground. When ten players have been dismissed, the innings ends and the teams swap roles. The game is adjudicated by two umpires, aided by a third umpire and match referee in international matches. They communicate with two off-field scorers who record the match's statistical information.
The NRL Grand Final, which determines the Australian rugby league football season's premiers, is one of Australia's major sporting events and one of the largest attended club championship events in the world. Since 1999 it has been contested at Sydney's Stadium Australia, which was the primary athletics venue for the 2000 Olympic Games. The first year it was held at Stadium Australia, the National Rugby League grand final broke the record for attendance at an Australian rugby league game, with 107,999 people attending.
Seven team sports are currently on the program of the Summer Olympics. Cricket's inclusion in the 2024 Summer Olympics depends on the decision of the International Cricket Council and its members. A cricket tournament formed part of the Summer Olympics in 1900, although only one match was played, between teams representing Great Britain and France. However, the British team was effectively a club touring side and the French players were drawn partly from expatriates living in Paris.
Cricket has been played in Hadspen, at Entally and grounds nearer the town's centre, since at least the 1860s. The cricket oval at Entally was one of the first in Australia and was hosting matches before Melbourne's foundation. During his side's 1874 tour of Australia the great English cricketer W. G. Grace played on the ground. Aside from cricket Entally's grounds were often open for picnics and grand annual events. The Hadspen "Chieftains" cricket club was formed in the 1987–88 season and plays as part of the Northern Tasmania Cricket Association. They won the association's A grade premiership in the 1991–92 and 1993–94 seasons, and the Charltons Cup Premiership—a combined competition with the North East Cricket Association—in the 1993–94 and 1994–95 seasons.
William Morris "Bill" Lawry, AM (born 11 February 1937) is a former cricketer who played for Victoria and Australia. He captained Australia in 25 Tests, winning nine, losing eight and drawing eight, and led Australia in the inaugural One Day International match, played in 1971. An opening batsman with a reputation for resolute defence, he had the ability to spend long periods of time at the crease. As his career progressed, he wound back his strokeplay to the point where he was described by an English journalist as "the corpse with pads on". Lawry was unceremoniously dumped as captain and player for the final Test of the 1970–71 Ashes series in Australia. Lawry's sacking is regarded as one of the more distasteful incidents in Australian cricket history—he was not informed personally of the selectors' decision before the decision was first broadcast on radio and he only became aware of his fate when confronted by reporters. Lawry was part of the Nine Network cricket commentary team and until 2018, had been in the role for 45 years.
The International Cricket Council (ICC), which has its headquarters in Dubai, is the global governing body of cricket. It was founded as the Imperial Cricket Conference in 1909 by representatives from England, Australia and South Africa, renamed the International Cricket Conference in 1965, and took up its current name in 1989. The ICC in 2017 has 105 member nations, twelve of which hold full membership and can play Test cricket. The ICC is responsible for the organisation and governance of cricket's major international tournaments, notably the men's and women's versions of the Cricket World Cup. It also appoints the umpires and referees that officiate at all sanctioned Test matches, Limited Overs Internationals and Twenty20 Internationals.
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the largest country in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country by total area. The neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north; the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east; and New Zealand to the south-east. The population of / 1000000 round 0 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard. Australia's capital is Canberra, and its largest city is Sydney. The country's other major metropolitan areas are Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.
The league currently consists of 18 teams spread over five of Australia's six states (Tasmania being the exception). Matches have been played in all states and mainland territories of Australia, as well as in New Zealand and China (although no professional teams or leagues exist outside Australia) to promote the sport abroad. The AFL season currently consists of a pre-season competition (currently branded as the "JLT Community Series"), followed by a 23-round regular (or "home-and-away") season, which runs during the Australian winter (March to September). The team with the best record after the home-and-away series is awarded the "minor premiership." The top eight teams then play off in a four-round finals series, culminating in the AFL Grand Final, which is held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground each year. The grand final winner is termed the "premiers", and is awarded the premiership cup. The current premiers are the West Coast Eagles.
Shane Warne, regarded as one of the best bowlers in the history of the game, holds several Test records. He held the record for the most Test wickets with 708 until December 2007 when Sri Lankan bowler Muttiah Muralitharan passed Warne's milestone. Warne is second only to Muralitharan in taking the most five-wicket hauls in an innings and the most ten-wicket hauls in a Test match. Glenn McGrath, who took 563 wickets in his career, is second only to England's James Anderson for the most wickets taken by a fast bowler in Test cricket. Adam Gilchrist is Australia's most successful wicket-keeper having taken 416 dismissals. He is second only to South Africa's Mark Boucher with 555 to his name. Allan Border, who made his Test debut in 1978 and captained Australia from 1984 until his retirement in 1994, holds the Australian record for the most consecutive matches played with 153 and the record for the most matches played as skipper for Australia with 93.
The top five records are listed for each category, except for the team wins, losses, draws and ties and the partnership records. Tied records for fifth place are also included. Explanations of the general symbols and cricketing terms used in the list are given below. Specific details are provided in each category where appropriate. 
, Australia has played 818 Test matches resulting in 384 victories, 222 defeats, 210 draws and 2 ties for an overall winning percentage of 46.94, the highest winning percentage of Test playing teams. Australia has played the second-highest number of Test matches, behind England who have competed in 1,007. Australia has never lost or drawn a match against Zimbabwe, the only team to do so. Australia is also the only team to win their debut Test match with every other team losing their first Test except Zimbabwe who drew against India.
Australia entered World War II on 3 September 1939, following the government's acceptance of the United Kingdom's declaration of war on Nazi Germany. Following attacks on Allied countries, the Australian government later declared war on other members of the Axis powers, including the Kingdom of Italy (11 June 1940) and the Empire of Japan (8 December 1941). By the end of the war, almost a million Australians had served in the armed forces, whose military units fought primarily in the European theatre, North African campaign, and the South West Pacific theatre. In addition, Australia came under direct attack for the first time in its post-colonial history. Its casualties from enemy action during the war were 27,073 killed and 23,477 wounded.
The culture of Australia is primarily a Western culture, to some extent derived from Britain but also influenced by the unique geography of Australia, the cultural input of Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and other Australian people. The British colonization of Australia began in 1788, and waves of multi-ethnic migration followed. Evidence of a significant Anglo-Celtic heritage includes the predominance of the English language, the existence of a democratic system of government drawing upon the British traditions of Westminster Government, Parliamentarianism and constitutional monarchy, American constitutionalist and federalist traditions, Christianity as the dominant religion, and the popularity of sports originating in (or influenced by) the British Isles. Australian culture has diverged significantly since British settlement.
The Australian Football League is the top professional Australian rules football league in the world. The league consists of eighteen teams: nine based in the city of Melbourne, one from regional Victoria, and eight based in other Australian states. The reason for this unbalanced geographic distribution lies in the history of the league, which was based solely within Victoria from the time it was established in 1897, until the time the league expanded through the addition of clubs from interstate to the existing teams starting in the 1980s; until this expansion, the league was known as the "Victorian Football League".
This list includes the appointment date and performance record of current Australian Football League senior coaches. The league consists of 18 clubs across Australia, with at least one club in every state/territory apart from Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory.
Cricket has been a sport at the modern Summer Olympic Games. The only time it has been played was at the 1900 Summer Olympics with only a men's contest when Great Britain won the gold medal, but the possibility of it being contested at the Olympics again has recently resurfaced.
The Commonwealth of Australia was formed in 1901 as a result of an agreement among six self-governing British colonies, which became the six states. The terms of this contract are embodied in the Australian Constitution, which was drawn up at a Constitutional Convention and ratified by the people of the colonies at referendums. The Australian head of state is the Queen of Australia who is represented by the Governor-General of Australia, with executive powers delegated by constitutional convention to the Australian head of government, the Prime Minister of Australia.
The Australia–Japan football rivalry is a sports rivalry that exists between the national association football teams of each country, regarded as one of Asia's biggest football rivalries. The rivalry is a relatively recent one, born from a number of highly competitive matches between the two teams since Australia joined the Asian Football Confederation in 2006. The two teams have played each other in several significant matches, including a World Cup group stage match and the 2011 Asian Cup Final.
Cricket was originally scheduled to be included in the inaugural 1896 Summer Olympics, which were held in Athens; cricket would have been the only team sport held at the Games. There were, however, insufficient entries and so no event was held.
The Ashes is a Test cricket series played between England and Australia. The Ashes are regarded as being held by the team that most recently won the Test series. If the test series is drawn, the team that currently holds the Ashes retains the trophy. The term originated in a satirical obituary published in a British newspaper, "The Sporting Times", immediately after Australia's 1882 victory at The Oval, its first Test win on English soil. The obituary stated that English cricket had died, and "the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia". The mythical ashes immediately became associated with the 1882–83 series played in Australia, before which the English captain Ivo Bligh had vowed to "regain those ashes". The English media therefore dubbed the tour "the quest to regain the Ashes".
Cricket Australia XI is a domestic cricket team who play tour matches against international teams touring Australia. The team formerly played in Australia's JLT Cup limited-overs tournament consisting of talented young state-contracted players. Before each tournament, a 14-man squad was selected from players with state contracts, or Australian National Performance Squad players, who had not been picked in their respective states' 14-man List A squads for that season's tournament. The aim is to develop their skills against top players.
There are currently 290,566 female participants in cricket. The Australia national women's cricket team competes internationally and has won the Women's Cricket World Cup 5 times, more than any other team. As in men's cricket, Australia and England were the first two women's Test nations, playing in the inaugural women's Test in Brisbane in 1934. Australia compete with England for the Women's Ashes, a cricket bat symbolically burned prior to the 1998 test series. The Australian team also compete in the Rose Bowl series, a series of one-day internationals against New Zealand.
The ongoing aims and objectives of the VBCA are as follows:Blind cricket is widely played in Australia, with teams playing regular fixtures in the states of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, as well as in the Australian Capital Territory. Every two years State cricket teams meet for the Australian Blind Cricket Championships. The 31st National Blind Cricket Championships was held in Queensland in 2012.
Australia does not have a dedicated national stadium, instead the team plays at different venues throughout the country for exhibition or tournament purposes. In recent years, major international matches have usually been rotated around various large grounds, include Stadium Australia and Sydney Football Stadium in Sydney, Hunter Stadium in Newcastle, Docklands Stadium in Melbourne and Lang Park in Brisbane. International matches have also been played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and Melbourne Rectangular Stadium in Melbourne, Hindmarsh Stadium and Adelaide Oval in Adelaide, Subiaco Oval in Perth and Canberra Stadium in Canberra.