Cricket has been played at a few unlikely venues over the years but perhaps none as unusual as Darwin, the setting for the first Test between Australia and Bangladesh, which starts on Friday.

The capital of Australia's Northern Territory is a sprawling city better known for being bombed by the Japanese during the Second World War and flattened by a cyclone on Christmas Eve 1974, than as an international sporting venue.

The Northern Territory is the heartland of Australia's Aboriginal community and Darwin's 70,000 inhabitants are as rugged a people as you could meet in Australia.

Darwin was chosen to host this week's match to help Australia fulfil their commitment to the ICC's world Test championship, which decrees that all 10 Test-playing nations must play each other home and away within a five-year period.

With the annual summer schedules all heavily booked in advance, Cricket Australia decided to break with tradition and play Bangladesh in the winter in the country's tropical north, where the sun shines all year round and crocodiles outnumber people.

TWO SEASONS

There are only two seasons in Darwin -- wet and dry -- and cricket is played in the dry winter months when the temperatures normally hover around 30 degrees Celsius.

But, while the weather was not a problem, staging a Test in such a remote region did present huge logistical problems to Cricket Australia.

Darwin's Marrara Oval, where the match will be played, is normally an Australian Rules Football ground, and has never hosted a first-class cricket match, never mind a Test.

Because the ground was not up to Test match standard, a temporary pitch, weighing 36 tonnes, was grown in Melbourne then shipped north and dropped into place by a giant crane.

There were no suitable sightscreens available in Darwin either, so the old screens at the Melbourne Cricket Ground were cut up, transported and then reassembled.

The second Test against Bangladesh will be played in Cairns in tropical north Queensland and Cricket Australia is already looking at playing more winter Tests.

Australia's team has entered into the irreverent spirit of the match by bringing their families with them, taking their children on visits to crocodile farms and nature sanctuaries.

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