Although little evidence has survived of Tasmania's early days, cricket was probably played on the island soon after its European settlement in 1803. Certainly by 1814, when the colony's chaplain Robert Knopwood noted in his diary the popularity of the game during the holiday period around Christmas, the game was well established as a pastime, although the extent of its organisation remains a doubtful quantity.
Tasmania produced some good players in the inter-War era, banking on a progressive policy of youth that allowed teenagers such as CL Badcock, RV Thomas and ROG Morrisby to play first-class cricket. Others such as AO Burrows, DC Green, SWL Putman, GTH James and GA Combes were selected in their early 20s, and usuallygave a good account of themselves. Team selection was still hampered somewhat by the need to give the north and the south equal representation in the side, which was not therefore always the best that might have been selected.