December 12, 2024
SUNBURY is a satellite suburb of Melbourne, Victoria State, Australia, with a postcode of 3429 – approx. 42 kilometres north-west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Hume local government area. Statistically, it is considered part of Greater Melbourne. It is a beautiful township – a little bit of a country, a little bit of a city, with a mixture of greenery and barren land.
The Indian Cricket Team which arrived in Australia in November 2024 is on a tour of the country until January 2025. We, a group of friends will be in attendance for the Boxing Day (December 26) Test Match in the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), the second biggest cricket stadium in the world, also locally known as the The ‘G, to see action, feel the vibes and above all enjoy a game of cricket.
The last time when the Indian cricket team was here Downunder, during December 2020, I had been to Rockbank accompanied by a friend, a rural-urban fringe, approx. 37 kms west of Melbourne CBD and subsequently I had penned an Article about the findings relating to cricket in these very columns. One of the Housing Estates known as ‘Accolade Estate’ have all the nineteen streets named after famed cricketers of the world spanning a few generations. Fast forward, the Indian Cricket Team touring the Continent again, I drove to Sunbury to discover things related to cricket and visiting streets named after Australian cricketing greats.
Unlike the estate is Rockbank, which is comparatively new and the streets named after cricketing legends belonging to six cricketing nations including Indian stars Virat Kohli, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman and Kapil Dev, the streets in Sunbury reflect names of Aussie cricketing greats of the twentieth and twenty-first century.
Cruising down Sunbury’s Bradman Drive, I was bowled over by Border Boulevard, Waugh Street, Gilchrist Crescent, Healy Avenue and Yardley Street. Lillee Park, Benaud Place, Cover Drive and Baggy Green Drive weren’t too far away either.
THE STREETS Border Boulevard and Bradman Drive lay across each other in the suburb of Sunbury.
BORDER BOULEVARD: The coveted Border-Gavaskar Trophy bears the name of Australia’s former captain Allan Border, who has a street named after him in Sunbury.
WAUGH STREET is named after Stephen Rodger Waugh (Steve Waugh) in Sunbury, widely regarded as the best Australian Cricket captain.
BENAUD PLACE: A Street is called after Aussie Test cricket all-rounder Richie Benaud, who later became a respected commentator.
GILCRIST CRESCENT: A road bears the name of Adam Craig Gilchrist, former Australian Wicket-Keeper, an opening left-handed batsman, widely known for his aggressive batting display.
HEALY AVENUE: A street named after former Australian wicket-keeper and a middle-order batsman Ian Andrew Healy in Sunbury.
YARDLEY STREET: An Aussie off-spin bowler who bowled at a near medium pace, Bruce Yardley was also an exceptional fielder in the gully region.
COVER DRIVE: A street denoting one of the classic shots in cricket - where the ball is stroked through the covers, with well-timed wristwork and conventional movement of the front foot.
BAGGY GREEN DRIVE: The baggy green is a cricket cap of dark myrtle green, worn by Australian Test cricketers since around the turn of the 20th century.
SUNBURY – THE BIRTHPLACE OF THE ASHES
Four cricketers' busts celebrate and acknowledge Sunbury’s historical role as the birthplace of ‘The Ashes.’ The cricketers’ busts were unveiled in 2011 as part of the 175th anniversary of the presentation of the Ashes urn to English cricket captain Ivo Bligh. Each bust contains a plaque with a short biography of the cricketer. The four busts are: Don Bradman - Sculpted by Wendy Black; Ivo Bligh - Sculpted by Damien Lucas; W.G. Grace - Sculpted by Michael Christie and Dennis Lillee - Sculpted by Sue Alexopoulos; There is a proposal to look into the feasibility of adding two more late champions of the game: Shane Warne and Rod Marsh. There is also an idea of a “cricketer’s walk” where great Australian cricketers can be memorialised and immortalised and play into Sunbury’s cricketing history and connection. There is a suggestion to develop an Ashes Museum at the Old Sunbury Courthouse too.
For the unversed – The Ashes is a men’s Test cricket series played roughly every two years, between England and Australia that comprises of five Tests. The term originated in a satirical obituary published (pictured above) in a British newspaper, ‘The Sporting Times,’ a few days after Australia's stunning victory by seven runs on British soil at the Kennington Oval in August 1882. The match rated as ‘first class’ at that time, was retrospectively recognised as a Test match. England's defeat shocked the English public as they could not digest their team go down to the colonists on home turf. After a few months, Ivo Bligh, set sail leading an England team, still smarting from that defeat with a mission - to recover ‘The Ashes.’ On Christmas Eve 1882, the English cricket team, played a social game of cricket winning against a local team on the grounds of Rupertswood mansion in Sunbury. Sir William John Clarke, one of the Australia’s richest persons then, owned the mansion. He was the President of the Melbourne Cricket Club and in that capacity, he had invited the English Cricket team play the ‘warm up’ game before the real matches began. So, the story goes and is widely believed, after the game, Sir William’s spouse Lady Janet Clarke took one or more bails, burnt them and put the ashes in a small urn, wrapped in a red velvet bag and presented to the English captain, Ivo Bligh as a trophy.
On more or less similar lines, the Border–Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) is an International Test Cricket trophy played between India and Australia. The series is named after distinguished former captains, Australia's Allan Border and India’s Sunil Gavaskar. It is played via Test series scheduled using International Cricket Council’s Future Tours Programme. Given the competitive nature of the India-Australia rivalry and the high standings of both teams, the Border-Gavaskar trophy is considered to be one of the most prestigious bilateral trophies in 5-day cricket. India currently holds the coveted trophy having won the last four consecutive series.
DENNIS LILLEE: The bust of Dennis Keith Lillee, in Sunbury Main Town. Lillee is rated as the “outstanding fast-bowler of his generation”
IVO BLIGH, the Captain of the English Cricket Team is widely believed to have received the Urn as the Captain of the English cricket team, after the social match at the Rupertswood Mansion in Sunbury in December 1882.
BUSTS OF CRICKETING GREATS: On the corner of Evans and Brook streets in Sunbury main town, commemorating its place in Ashes history, sit four bronze busts of cricketing legends. Among them, Dennis Lillee and Ivo Bligh, pictured above.
CLOCKTOWER: The Clocktower, was specifically constructed to recognise Sunbury as being the birth place of The Ashes and depicts a cricket ball hitting the stumps.
SUNBURY – ‘NOT THE BIRTHPLACE OF THE ASHES’
There is also a controversy whether Sunbury is the birthplace of the ashes after all. Critics point out it is something cooked up by the historians as facts do not add up. The glossy story relating to the presentation of the urn to the English skipper at the mansion where a social game was played in December 1882 never appears to have taken place. All the people involved have hesitated to confirm that story, sometimes passing the buck to another apparently not to link their names to something that was not true.
The urn is a 11 cm high terracotta artifact, some believe could be a perfume bottle which contains ashes of a cricket bail. Two labels are pasted on it. The top one denotes ‘The Ashes.’ The bottom rectangular one is a verse cut out from the Melbourne Punch Magazine (Active: August 1855 to December 1925) published on 1 Feb 1883. It is equally perplexing to know how a paper cutting published on 1 Feb 1883 became part of an urn which was presented to Bligh on 24 Dec 1882.
If we consider that Igo Bligh was presented the urn or it was sent to him after the 3rd test (26-30 January 1883) in Sydney, everything falls in line. Originally, three matches were arranged between Bligh's XI and a Combined Australia XI. Bligh's XI won two of these after losing the first. If we are going by the Sunbury version of events, we have to cook up many stories to put the puzzles in place. Perhaps, this is the main reason why Sunbury though widely acknowledged to be the birthplace of the Ashes, is still struggling to get the legitimacy in this respect.
Whether Sunbury is the birthplace of the Ashes or not and the debate continues, one thing is certain – the ‘cricketing fragrance’ fills the suburb’s air. It is a blessed place where Cricket has thrived for many decades and continues so even today. This ‘piece of writing’ proves beyond doubt the suburb is filled with ‘everything cricket’ after the suburb’s favourite sport. Welcome to Sunbury!
I made it to the suburb of Sunbury …
With Indian Cricket team touring around
Captured monuments of the game
And the cricketing streets across the town
From a toddler to the elderly, locals are crazy here
Of the only game, they hold utmost dear!
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