Australian women are gathering international acclaim for their boundless talent on the cricket pitch.

The significant inroads our fearless females are making in the sport are welcome relief after last year’s ball-tampering scandal generated by their male counterparts.

In 2018, the Australian Women’s National Cricket Team (Southern Stars) topped the list in International Cricket Council one day international and Twenty20 team rankings. Team superstars Ellyse Perry topped both the ODI batting rankings and the all-rounder rankings, and Megan Schutt topped the T20 bowling rankings.

The ICC women’s rankings were only established four years ago, but women’s cricket is no new phenomenon.

The first recorded women’s cricket match was in England on July 26, 1745. But it wasn’t until 1894 that a women’s cricket league was set up in Australia.

Women’s cricket has been played internationally since the first Test match between the Australian national women’s cricket team and the English women’s cricket team in December 1934.

Australian National University and the Sydney Cricket and Sports Ground Trust have helped bring to light the story of a pair of Australian sisters who helped lay the groundwork for women in the 1880s.

In 1877, sisters Nellie, Louisa, Alice and Gertrude were members of cricket’s famous Gregory family.

The Gregorys were well-known for their prowess on the pitch.

The sisters’ father Ned — first curator of the Sydney Cricket Ground, then known as the Military and Civil Ground — and uncle David played and captained Australia’s first cricket test against England in 1877.

The girls grew up playing cricket with their brothers Charles and Syd, who also went on to become heavily invested in the game, with Syd playing 58 Test matches for Australia between 1890 and 1912.

But it was the lesser-known Gregory sisters who were the true pioneers of the family, according to Christine Fernon of ANU’s National Centre for Biography.

“As well as being among the first women players in NSW, Nellie and Louisa Gregory actually drove the development of women’s cricket, with Nellie organising matches and teaching cricket to girls in schools. Yet we know very little about them,” said Ms Fernon.

Museum assistant at the SGCT Madeleine Lindsell has written obituaries for Nellie and Louisa, and said while Nellie emerged as the best batter of the four Louisa became a great all-rounder, noted wicketkeeper and good slowbowler.

The two stand-out sisters each captained a side in the first-ever women’s club cricket match played in Australia in 1886 — for the Siroccos and the Fernleas.

The pair were part of an inspirational effort that spurred the establishment of a women’s cricket association in Victoria in 1905, which was followed by other States in the 1920s and 1930s.

The Western Australian Women’s Cricket Association was officially constituted in November 1930.

“Under such prestigious tutelage, the Gregory sisters became fierce and skilful cricketers in their own right,” Ms Lindsell said.

“Every bowler dreams of a five-wicket haul, but in that first match, Nellie Gregory took eight wickets for 37 runs in the first innings, then followed it up with six for a mere 12 runs in the second.

“Playing for the opposing team, her sister Louisa achieved six for 14 and three for 25 with Nellie top-scoring in both her side’s innings.”

The Gregory sisters maintained their ferocity on and off the pitch, yet a 19th century public failed to take their admirable efforts seriously and matches were played mostly for fundraising and novelty.

“One match had the Gregory sisters in a team against ‘The Actors’ — members of the JC Williamson theatrical company, dressed in full outlandish costume,” Ms Lindsell said.

“People wrote letters to the paper saying it was unacceptable. Some were concerned you might see a flash of women’s legs in public.

“There was quite a backlash because the dominant male opinion at the time was that ‘the glorious old sport of cricket should only be played by men’.”

Thankfully today’s more discerning public seem more concerned about putting leg before wicket than putting legs before cricket.

More than a century since the intrepid sisters made their mark on the sport women’s cricket may still play second fiddle to men’s. But watch this space. Women are making waves and showing no signs of slowing down.