What 1 January Tells Us About Cricket

The date carries an unmistakable Sydney accent. Bradman's 270, Ponsford's 183, Sutcliffe's 176, Hobbs's 154 and Vic Richardson's 138 were all made in Australia v England Tests, several of them at Sydney, and the 1995 Australia 593 v England 357 draw sits in the same ledger. Milestones follow the same map: Bradman's 6000 and 4000 Test runs, Hutton's 3000, and Fingleton's, Ponsford's and Trumper's 1000-run landmarks all fall on Australia v England or Australia v South Africa fixtures. For over a century, this has been the day the Ashes and South African tours produced their heaviest scoring.

Almost every best bowling figure on this date, Rhodes's 8/68 and 7/56, Noble's 7/17, Barnes's 7/121 and 6/42, Vogler's 7/94, Hall's 7/63 and Simpson-Hayward's 6/43, comes from Tests played between 1902 and 1923, with only Wardle's 7/36 in 1957 breaking into the mid-century. Batting milestones, by contrast, keep appearing right through 1949, 1964, 1977 and into 2022 with Mehidy Hasan, Shadman Islam and Devon Conway. The date's bowling story is essentially frozen in the Edwardian and Federation years, while its batting story keeps being rewritten.

In the modern game the date belongs to Australian franchise cricket. Nine of the ten T20 league matches listed are BBL fixtures, and Hobart features repeatedly, including Hobart Hurricanes 168/4 v Perth Scorchers 189/9 in BBL 2025/26, the same match that produced Mitchell Marsh's 102 off 58 and Aaron Hardie's 94 off 43. Short's 97 and Buttler's 81, both from Sydney Thunder v Hobart Hurricanes in BBL 2017, reinforce the pattern. Where the international list points to Sydney Ashes Tests, the T20 list points to the Big Bash's Tasmanian leg.