History of New Zealand cricket

History of New Zealand cricket

• They played their first Test in 1930 against England in Christchurch. 
• New Zealand became the fifth country to play Test cricket.
• They won their first Test match against West Indies in the year 1955-56 at Eden Park. 
• They played their first ODI in the 1972–73 season against Pakistan in Christchurch.
• The reverend Henry Williams provided history with the first report of a game of cricket in New Zealand when he wrote in his diary in December 1832 about boys in and around Paihia on Horotutu Beach playing cricket.

 In 1835, Charles Darwin and the HMS Beagle called into the Bay of Islands on its epic circumnavigation of the Earth and Darwin witnessed a game of cricket played by freed Māori slaves and the son of a missionary at Waimate North. Darwin in The Voyage of the Beagle wrote:

several young men redeemed by the missionaires from slavery were employed on the farm. In the evening I saw a party of them at cricket.

• The first recorded game of cricket in New Zealand was played in Wellington in December 1842.
•  Played by a "Red" team and a "Blue" team from the Wellington Club.  
• The first team to tour New Zealand was Parr's all England XI in 1863–64. Between 1864 and 1914, 22 foreign teams toured New Zealand. England sent 6 teams, Australia 15 and one from Fiji.
• On 15–17 February 1894 the first team representing New Zealand played New South Wales at Lancaster Park in Christchurch.
• In 1927 NZ toured England. They played 26 first class matches, mostly against county sides. They managed to beat Worcestershire, Glamorgan, Somerset, and Derbyshire. On the strength of the performances on this tour New Zealand was granted Test status.
• New Zealand's first Test after the war was against Australia in 1945/46.

• Post Second World War 2

• In 1954/55 New Zealand recorded the lowest ever innings total, 26 against England. The following season New Zealand achieved its first Test victory. 
•  The first 3 Tests of a 4 Test series were won easily by the West Indies but New Zealand won the fourth to notch up its first Test victory. It had taken them 45 matches and 26 years to attain.