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Sport was a potent means by which, in the lead up to Federation, Australians began to assert a sense of themselves as youthful, manly and athletic – the products of an equally young and virile new nation.
This might explain why early exemplars of Australian cricketing prowess went to the crease with what seems to have been de rigueur for urbane-yet-sporting chaps: a wide, waxed, dapper ‘tache, perky at the tips and parted at the centre.
1The Murdoch. 2The first Australian first-class cricket team to tour England and North America, 1878 A & G Taylor.