From Swansea to the MCG: The Welsh cricket connection to the Mullagh Medal

Andrew Hignell, scorer and official historian of Glamorgan County Cricket Club

The Mullagh Medal, which celebrates the integration of First Nations People into Australian cricket will be awarded to the player of the match between Australia and England taking place in Melbourne this week.

The medal is the centre piece of a belt and includes a picture of an Australian touring team led by Johnny Mullagh taken at the Bryn-y-Mor cricket ground in the Uplands, Swansea in 1868.

They were playing a select XI put together by Swansea businessman and cricket lover, JTD Llewelyn who was trying to raise funds for a county team.

The photograph has two unique aspects: It shows the first ever Australian team to tour overseas and that the team is predominantly made up of First Nation Peoples.

The match was played on the 6th and 7th of July. The tourists were far too strong for the home team and won by an innings.

The Australian squad photo at the Bryn-y-Mor ground, as well as umpire and reserve player William Shepherd, has become one of the few surviving artifacts from this groundbreaking tour by the Aboriginal side, and is now the centrepiece of the Johnny Mullagh Medal, awarded by Cricket Australia to the player of the match in the Boxing Day Test held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and watched in 2024 by a crowd of 87,242 people.

The star of the team and the tour was Johnny Mullagh. Mullagh scored scoring 1698 runs in the forty-seven matches which were organised, bowling 1877 overs and claiming 245 wickets at ten runs apiece.

If that wasn’t enough, he also donned the wicket-keeper’s gauntlets and made four stumpings.

After the tour to the UK, he joined the Melbourne Cricket Club as their professional and also appeared for Victoria against a touring England XI in 1879.

He played however, for much of his career for Harrow CC, Victoria and continued to play until a few months before his death at Pine Hills Station in August 1891, the day after his fiftieth birthday.

One obituary fittingly described him as “The WG Grace of Aboriginal cricketers.”

Away from cricket, Mullagh had been a passionate advocate of indigenous rights and refused to live on state-controlled reserves.

He had been subject to a considerable amount of racism during his career which effectively restricted his professional abilities.

Immediately following the tour legislation was introduced in Australia which banned the involvement of First Nation peoples in the sport nationally as they were not allowed to travel outside their own state.

It would take over a hundred years before Jason Gillespie in 1996 became the first man of First Nation heritage to play cricket for Australia.

In 2012 the Premier of Victoria, Ted Baillieu, announced that Mullagh would be one of the twenty inaugural inductees to the State’s Indigenous Honour Roll, whilst the local ground in Harrow, Melbourne is named as the Johnny Mullagh Oval.

In 2020, Mullagh was posthumously inducted the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame, whilst Cricket Australia formally announced the creation of the Mullagh Medal, which celebrates the integration of Aboriginal people into Australian cricket.

It’s first recipient was India’s Ajinka Rahane, whilst in 2021 Scott Boland – another Australian of First Nation descent– received the award having taken seven wickets on his Test debut during the Ashes Test against England.

The match in Swansea in 1868 was promoted by JTD Llewelyn to raise funds for creating a cricket ground in Swansea and covering the costs likely to be incurred by a county team representing Glamorgan.

Andrew Hignell’s forthcoming book THE EXTRA TEST: THE STORY OF GLAMORGAN PLAYING THE BEST: 1875 – 2025 will be published to coincide with the new cricket season in 2026, which sees Glamorgan back in the topflight of county cricket.

You can pre-order the book from from Parthian here