Preview: Test history looms, Renshaw returns as Australia and Bangladesh go again
Australia was handed an historic, humbling nine-wicket defeat by Bangladesh in Darwin earlier this week.
It was the first time the Tigers had claimed a Test-match victory in Australia, and will have prompted some serious soul searching for the hosts, who were comprehensively second-best against the world's ninth ranked team.
Tomorrow morning, more history will be made, with Mackay's Harrup Park becoming the 12th Australian venue to host a Test when the teams begin the second and final match of the series.
Australia has made one change to its squad for the encounter, with Matt Renshaw coming in for Jake Weatherald, while the return of an exciting young quick sees Bangladesh faced with a selection dilemma.
The second Test between Australia and Bangladesh gets underway on Saturday August 22 , with the first session of play beginning at 10am AEST in Mackay, QLD .
That is 10am in Queensland, New South Wales, ACT, Victoria and Tasmania, 9:30am in South Australia and the Northern Territory (ACST), and 8am in Western Australia (AWST).
And an extra half hour of play will almost certainly be tacked on to the end of each day in an attempt to bowl the full compliment of overs.
Mackay's Harrup Park , also known as the Great Barrier Reef Arena , is set to become Australia's 12th Test venue, the first addition to the list since Canberra's Manuka Oval hosted its debut match in 2019.
The venue has hosted just two Sheffield Shield matches and a pair of Australia A fixtures in the past decade, so it is a relatively unknown quantity when it comes to professional red ball cricket.
But it has seen international action in the past, with both Australia's women's and men's teams playing white-ball games there, and the ground held a youth Test between Australia and India last year.
The most recent Shield match at the venue came in October 2023, when, off the back off a mammoth first dig of 9-501d, Queensland completed an innings victory over Victoria.
Renshaw, in-line to play his first Test in three years tomorrow, was the player-of-the-match in that game, scoring 135 to become the only player to hit two First Class centuries at the venue.
Australia has made one change to its squad since the first Test, with opening batter Renshaw coming into the playing group at the expense of Weatherald.
Weatherald returned scores of 23 and 0 in front of his home crowd in Darwin, following on from a disappointing debut series against England last summer.
5News aggregated this summary from the outlet’s public feed. The full article, with all the context, is on www.abc.net.au — the content belongs to ABC News Australia - Sport.