About Us

The Great Britain Transplant Cricket Club arose from a challenge issued at the 2003 World Transplant Games in Nancy, France. The Great Britain team had come top of the medals team and the Australian team, ever keen to maintain the rivalry with the “Mother Country” issued a challenge to come to Australia and play competitive transplant cricket.

The GBTCC is unique in that all its players have received life changing, and very often life saving, organ transplants that have transformed their lives. The players include those who have spent years, up to 8 in one case, on thrice weekly dialysis to treat end-stage renal failure. Others have been quite literally at death’s door prior to receiving their life saving liver or heart transplants; sometimes after periods of chronic illness others as a result of acute conditions.

All of the GBTCC’s players love cricket and see the GBTCC as a vehicle by which they can publicise transplantation and especially the idea that a transplant can transform an individual’s life from a situation of having a serious and debilitating illness to one of full and active participation in life and the wider community. All the players feel that they owe a duty to their donors to celebrate their opportunity for a more normal life and to do what they can to enable others to benefit from organ transplantation.

In January 2004 the former Australian Test batsman and then coach of the Victoria state side, David Hookes, died tragically and his family agreed to him becoming an organ donor. The head of Transplant Australia knew the Hookes family and asked if the forthcoming tour by the Great Britain Transplant Cricket Club could be played for a shield in memory David; Mrs Hookes agreed to this and so later in the year the two sides played for the David Hookes Memorial Shield

We have now played a series in Australia (2004) and the series in the UK (2006) as well as numerous games across the UK.

We are always looking to welcome new players to the team  - do get in touch!