baggygreen

Cricket was introduced in Papua New Guinea (PNG) by missionaries from the London Missionaries Society in the early 1900s. Initially, matches were not always played with strict rules, with teams fielding over fifty players a common occurrence. The game became very popular among the Papuan coastal villages where these missionaries and early British explorers first landed. There is still conjecture about where the first game of cricket was played, with Milne Bay, Oro, and Hanuabada the three (3) most likely areas where the first cricket match was played on the shores of PNG. Source: www.icc-cricket.com/about/members/east-asia-pacific/assoc...

In the past, matches were not always played to strict rules, with teams of more than fifty players a common occurrence. Cricket did not arrive in the Territory of New Guinea until Australia took over the administration of the territory under a United Nations mandate. Cricket in rural areas tended to be played mostly by the indigenous population, whilst in urban areas such as Port Moresby the game was played mostly by the British and Australian expatriate population, and competition for clubs in the city was started in 1937. A team of nine expatriates and two indigenous players played in Papua New Guinea's first international, against Australia in 1972. Since its beginnings cricket was picked up naturally in the Motuan areas of Papua New Guinea, most recognizably the village of Hanuabada. Hanuabada village is located in the outer suburbs of Port Moresby, where cricket is played every day by small children to their national stars, every afternoon the streets are flooded with boys playing cricket, this was also where the Liklik Kricket Competition was started in PNG. It may be for these reasons more than half of the PNG national cricket team is from Hanuabada village. Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papua_New_Guinea_national_cricket_team

The Main Arena at the Brisbane Showgrounds (formerly known as the Brisbane Exhibition Ground) is operated by the Royal National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland (RNA). The Royal Queensland Show or 'Ekka' as Queenslanders refer to it, is staged by the Showgrounds in August each year and attracts more than 600,000 visitors. Located adjacent to the Brisbane CBD at Bowen Hills, the Showgrounds are bound by Bowen Bridge Road, O'Connell Terrace, St Paul's Terrace, and Gregory. The main arena is surrounded by several stands with a total seating capacity of 20,526. Standing room for an additional 4,964 people brings the ground's capacity to 25,490. The oldest stand on the ground is The John McDonald Stand (1906), which seats 2,225 people. The Ernest Baynes Stand, when opened in 1922, seated almost 4,000 people. The top section of the double-deck stand closed in 1985 following a safety inspection. When renovated in 1993, an 'old-fashioned' roof replaced the closed-off section. Today, it seats 1,750 people. The Members Stand, situated between the McDonald and Baynes stands, was opened in 1972 and seats 778. The concrete terrace that stretches around the northern end of the ground is called Machinery Hill and seats almost 11,000 people. Twenty-eight first-class cricket matches were been played at the Exhibition Ground between 1893 and 1931, including two Tests and thirteen Sheffield Shield matches. The Exhibition Ground became the main venue for cricket in Brisbane in 1923/24 and was the venue for the match played between the touring MCC team and an Australian XI in 1924/25. The Test against England in 1928/29 was the first Test played in Brisbane and featured the debut of D.G. Bradman, who scored 18 and 1. The ground measured 142 x 155m fence-to-fence. The third Test of the series against the West Indies in 1930/31 was the last first-class game played at the ground. Source: www.austadiums.com/stadiums/brisbane-showgrounds

Thanks for sharing the History.