Queensland

Queensland's cricketers took the field before the state itself had much of a domestic competition to play in; the Queensland Cricket Association formed in 1867, and the team followed in 1876.

The breakthrough came in 1994/95, when Queensland won its first Sheffield Shield after generations of trying. The title is remembered there as much for the wait it ended as for the cricket itself. Eight more Shields followed, the most recent in 2020/21, along with ten one-day titles under various sponsors' names from the Ford Ranger Trophy of the late 1970s through to the Ryobi Cup in 2013/14.

Matthew Hayden built the foundations of his Test career in maroon before Queensland became his springboard to Australian openership. The state also gave brief homes to touring greats: Viv Richards and Ian Botham both turned out for Queensland at different points, lending the domestic side an international edge it did not otherwise carry.

Matches are played at the Gabba, and the fixtures against New South Wales and Victoria carry the weight of the oldest rivalries in Australian domestic cricket, played out over more than a century of Shield seasons. The current squad, built around players such as Usman Khawaja and Marnus Labuschagne, carries that history into a competition where the last Shield is now several seasons behind them and another push for the title is the immediate job at hand.