When this summer's Ashes series commenced in Boorloo/Perth, history was made with two Indigenous Australians playing in the same Test lineup for the first time in 149 years.

Brendan Doggett, the Worimi man who turned out for his much-awaited test debut, joined Scott Boland, the Gulidjan man who has become a folk hero with the fairy-tale late blooming of his international career, wore the Baggy Green cap against England together in the West.

In their corner was another Test debutant with a lot of love for First Nations culture.

Jake Weatherald lived on Larrakia Country in his formative years with several close Aboriginal mates. That is how the Australian opening batsman says he first learned how to fish, learned the spirit of Australian rules football and to appreciate music from an Indigenous perspective.

The 31-year-old revealed amid playing cricket professionally across the past decade, he has continued to be an outspoken advocate for the rights of Indigenous people.

Weatherald has attended rallies for the cause of justice for First Nations people, and similar events that have extended to also supporting the human rights of refugees, and has written on social media calling for Australia Day to be moved from January 26 because of the traumatic association the date has with the invasion and colonisation of Australia.

This sense of social justice stems from growing up in Australia's most northern capital with the highest presence of First Nations people.

It was further reinforced when Weatherald, aged 15, moved to Adelaide for cricket to start boarding at Prince Alfred College - the school once attended by the Chappell brothers, Tim May and Greg Blewett.

The move was a culture shock for someone who grew up respecting Indigenous people.

"It was a very hard experience for me when I first came down south because the relevance of Indigenous rights and the perceived notion of what they were, how they went about their life, was so different to what I had experienced," Weatherald recently told CODE Sports.

"While some of the things that are said about Indigenous-based stuff, while it does have some merit to it in terms of the inequality up there with some of the social issues, but if you don't live there, it's really hard to make judgment of why that happened."

On his test debut, he became the first NT born and raised player to represent Australia at the highest level.

The left-hander returned to Adelaide for the first time in the third Ashes Test since earning a Baggy Green cap a month ago.

Weatherald made his first-class debut for South Australia before moving to Tasmania in 2024 to reinvigorate his red-ball career. He has also joined the Hobart Hurricanes for games when he finds a gap in his Test schedule.

The move ended his T20 time with Katherine-born but Darwin-raised allrounder D'Arcy Short at the Adelaide Strikers. The Migunberri man once played a role in guiding the teenage Weatherald at their local NT Strike lineup, a team in which Weatherald faced invitational overseas sides - and scored a century on debut against Papua New Guinea.

Though Weatherald has not been afraid to challenge other people's perceptions, he says his views of Indigenous rights and history have largely been well-received in cricket circles.

"I was very passionate about making people more aware of how important it was to be far more accepting, to understand that the trauma they're going through is still very relevant to them," he said with regards to some of the social challenges in his home Territory.

Weatherald has also been sensitive to the rights of migrants.

"I was also big on the refugee front," he says.

"I've always seen refugees as a bit of a scapegoat within the Australian community too. They use them for political based stuff, and I've always seen this as human beings looking for a better life."