National history

Origins in Australia

Indoor cricket in Australia is commonly thought to have begun in Perth in 1978. Dennis Lillee and a club cricket colleague, Graham Monoghan, started a cricket coaching school with indoor nets, progressing to games. Around the same time, businessmen Paul Hannah and Mick Jones were trialing an 8-a-side indoor cricket game at their Subiaco Cricket Arena. These two were later involved in the founding of the nationwide chain Indoor Cricket Arenas. In 1984, approximately 200,000 people were playing indoor cricket in Australia at hundreds of ICA stadiums.

During the early days of indoor cricket in Australia, two factions of indoor cricket existed - Indoor Cricket Arenas (ICA) and the Indoor Cricket Federation (ICF). ICA was a franchise whereas the ICF was made up of privately owned centres. They both ran separately from each other meaning that each group had their own tournaments and State teams. In approximately 1989 both ICA and the ICF merged to become the Australian Indoor Cricket Federation (AICF).

The not-for-profit AICF was founded with representatives from each state and territory. In 1991, the AICF received funding from the Australian Sports Commission for the first time, and established a head office in Victoria. In 1992, there were 265 indoor cricket centres in Australia - 54 in Victoria, 11 in Tasmania, 24 in WA, 17 in SA, 67 in NSW, 78 in Queensland, 5 in the NT and 4 in the ACT. Over 500,000 players were registered in Australia at this time.

In 1995, the World Indoor Cricket Federation was founded with members Australia, New Zealand, England and South Africa.

National Championships

The first ICA national carnival was held in 1981 in NSW between Victoria and New South Wales. It was a three game series, with the Blues victorious 2-1. In 1982 the carnival grew to include ACT, WA and Queensland, and was held in Victoria. Victoria were eventual champions, and the first All Star team was chosen:

Bruce Utting (VIC)

Peter Summers (NSW) - C

Mark Smirnoff (VIC)

John Werner (VIC)

Bill York (NSW)

Shane Smith (NSW)

Dennis Flavel (VIC)

Ross Gregory (VIC) - VC

Craig Sinclair (NSW)

Phil Beeby (NSW)

In 1983, with SA, Tasmania and ACT joining, all states now participated in the national carnival in NSW. New South Wales again were champions. The All Star team was:

Bob Vidler (NSW) - C

Ken Glover (QLD) - VC

Gary Olsen (NSW)

Mark Waugh (NSW)

Tony Hackett (QLD)

David Lewis (WA)

Mark Smith (NSW)

Steve Moss (NSW)

Bill York (NSW)

Peter Summers (NSW) - Coach

The first official Indoor Cricket National Championships were held in 1984 in Perth and have run every year since, except for 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. See the Nationals Honour Board page for a full list of nationals locations.

In 1996, major rule changes occurred at the National Championships, changing the sport into what most people know as indoor cricket today. These rule changes were:

The batters must run to score bonus net runs.
After two consecutive dot balls, the batters must attempt to run on the third ball. (This year's program described the third ball rule as adding "tremendous excitement and pressure to the game and reward[ing] accurate bowling".)
Skins scoring - each batting partnership is compared to the corresponding partnership of the other team, and whoever wins that mini competition receives a premiership point.

Australian teams

Player lists for Australian teams across Opens, Juniors and Masters, as well as Opens cap numbers and captains can be found on the Australian teams page.

Indoor cricket in Australia has an extremely proud and successful history, and Australia have won every single World Cup in both the Men's and Women's Open division.

Australia are the current World Champions in all divisions - the Open Men, Open Women, U22 Girls, U22 Boys, U18 Girls, U16 Boys and U14 Boys.