Eddie Gilbert: Best-Remembered Aboriginal Cricketer To Play First-Class Cricket In Australia

Eddie Gilbert was the best-remembered Aboriginal cricketer to play first-class cricket in Australia. In 1929, after years of playing with the Barambah Aboriginal cricket club, news of Eddie’s phenomenal success in local matches reached Brisbane and the Queensland Cricketing Association brought him to Woolloongabba for a demonstration. He slowly made his way up to playing with Queensland team and was a valuable member. The achievement that Eddie Gilbert is remembered for more than any other is his dismissal of the legendary Don Bradman for no score in a match at Brisbane in November 1931. It was an achievement that awarded Gilbert national fame.
“Only one bowler has ever knocked the bat out of the hands of Don Bradman, cricket's greatest batter: Eddie Gilbert. Only 15 bowlers have ever dismissed Bradman without a run to his name. Eddie Gilbert was one of them. Yet, whilst Bradman played test cricket for Australia for two decades,
As an Aboriginal man living in Queensland in 1931, Eddie Gilbert was bound by the restrictions of the Protection of Aboriginals Act 1987. This meant that he needed written permission to travel from his Aboriginal settlement each time he played in a first-class match. Gilbert received horrendous amounts of hate and was commonly ‘heckled’ during games. One Queensland player refused to ever speak to Gilbert, one batter deliberately tried to run him out in his first game and some refused to share train sleeping compartments, taxis, hotel rooms or dining tables with him. His fame and success on the cricket ground opened doors that were closed for other Aborigines. In Adelaide, when Gilbert was late to a movie he was seeing with his teammates, he was denied entry by the usher until the manager confirmed his identity and Gilbert was