PERTH, Australia — For six months in 1868, a squad made up exclusively of Indigenous Australians went on a cricket tour of Britain, the first trip of its kind by an Australian team. The squad performed well, but the trip was never repeated. A year later, the Australian authorities gained complete control over the residence, employment and marriage of their country’s Indigenous people, the start of a heavy-handed form of oversight that rendered future tours impossible.

The loss of opportunity foreshadowed how many Indigenous Australians — those who are Aboriginal or hail from the Torres Strait Islands — were excluded from cricket for the next century. In 1902, Jack Marsh, an Indigenous fast bowler from New South Wales, was dropped from a state match against a touring England team after the England captain refused to play against him. In the 1930s, Eddie Gilbert was considered one of the world’s fastest bowlers, but he had to obtain written permission merely to travel outside his Indigenous settlement in Queensland. He was never picked for Australia.

Even as recently as 2015, one Indigenous cricketer complained to researchers that in his local club’s locker-room fine system — where players were sanctioned for mistakes like dropping catches — he was always fined a modest amount simply because he was Indigenous. “Everyone thought it was hilarious,” he said in a report on the state of Indigenous cricket in Australia. “I never said anything though, ’cause in a way the blokes thought it was kind of including me, but it actually really hurt me.”