His cricket was fierce but 156 summers later, has Australia done justice to Johnny Mullagh?

The Johnny Mullagh Medal was won by Gulidjan man Scott Boland in 2021 as player of the Boxing Day Test. Photograph: Hamish Blair/AFP/Getty Images

Sam Konstas lit up the MCG with his audacious ‘ramp’ shots in the fourth Test against India. But Johnny Unaarimin Mullagh, Australia’s first Indigenous sporting hero was ramping 150 summers ago.

“Dropping on one knee to a fast rising ball, he would hold his bat over his shoulder and parallel to the ground,” wrote historian DJ Mulvaney of the man whose name adorns the medal that will be awarded to the best player of the Boxing Day Test, in a new edition of his book Cricket Walkabout. “The ball would touch the blade, and shoot high over the wicket-keeper’s head to the boundary.”