Day of reckoning at hand for Bangladesh

Much as Bangladesh would prefer it otherwise, the attention of the cricket world is going to be focussed on their performance against Australia for all the wrong reasons, when the first Test begins at Darwin tomorrow.

Questions like "How quickly can Australia win?" and "What records will they break?" are generating the only interest in this out-of-season fixture in Australia's far north. The world's newest Test venue - cricket's 89th, and only the 11th to acquire first-class status with a Test - is going to be the scene for the most searching study yet of Bangladesh's membership into the game's elite club.

It would hence be of little comfort that the pitch for the game will be different in nature to the one on which Bangladesh beat the region's Chief Minister's XI last weekend. That was a low and slow pitch of sandy nature, but the portable pitch that has been dropped into the middle of the Marrara Oval has a concrete base and is made of local clay.

The only possible impediment - and a remote one at that - to a dominating Australian performance will be the fact that the home players have not had the benefit of recent play in their preparation for the match. But it was only six weeks ago that they were in the West Indies, so technique and confidence should not have evaporated in that time, especially in an outfit as competitive as Australia have consistently shown themselves to be.

The match is just reward for the long-serving administrators of the Northern Territory, who would never have dreamed that they would be hosting a Test match, let alone the agreed four in the next five years. NT chief executive Jim Ford said that Bangladesh's participation in Darwin's first Test had not precluded keen interest in the game. The locals will get a chance to be part of history by attending the match and seeing their own team in the flesh.

Ford confidently expects that the audience numbers on Friday or Saturday will give the ground capacity of 13,000 a nudge. "Our administrators started out wanting to foster this part of the world as a winter haven for cricket. We have hosted pre-season camps and have had New Zealand's team and the Academy side here, and that has helped promote awareness of us and what we have to offer. The ground is looking an absolute treat and there will be quite a carnival atmosphere," he said.

It's the last week of school holidays, and local schoolchildren and cricket fans have been making good use of the Australian team being in town at a variety of functions that have been taking place.

Having already admitted that they might struggle to focus to perform against Bangladesh, it is not hard to imagine the effort that has been going into preparation by coach John Buchanan and captain Steve Waugh. For those players who need a focus, there are some individual milestones worth keeping in mind.

Adam Gilchrist is sitting on 2897 runs, at 59.12, and 183 dismissals. Matthew Hayden is set to crack the 3500 mark on 3475. Ricky Ponting, on 4787, has a chance to go past 5000 in the series, while Waugh's accumulation of runs beyond his 10,265 will give him a shot at getting his average back over 50 and his total nearer Allan Border's world record mark of 11,174. If he reaches three figures, Waugh will also have scored a century against every Test-playing nation.

Apart from the vast reserves of experience the Australians can call on, the Bangladesh's biggest problem will be that which has dogged their tenure in international cricket - a lack of application. With a background of poor exposure to first-class cricket, the tourists struggle to withstand the pressures of international play for long periods. It would surprise no-one if they struggle even more in Australia, playing as they will be under the shadow of being the weaker team in what is being called the biggest mismatch in Test cricket history.

Australia (from): 1 Steve Waugh (capt), 2 Ricky Ponting, 3 Andy Bichel, 4 Adam Gilchrist (wk), 5 Jason Gillespie, 6 Matthew Hayden, 7 Brad Hogg, 8 Justin Langer, 9 Brett Lee, 10 Darren Lehmann, 11 Martin Love, 12 Stuart MacGill, 13 Glenn McGrath

Bangladesh (from): Khaled Mahmud (capt), Javed Omar, Khaled Mashud, Habibul Bashar, Mohammad Rafique, Hannan Sarker, Mohammad Ashraful, Al-Sahariar, Manjural Islam, Alok Kapali, Sanwar Hossain, Tareq Aziz, Tapash Baisya, Anwar Hossain Monir, Mashrafe Mortaza

Umpires: Rudi Koertzen, David Shepherd, Simon Taufel (3rd), Steve Davis (4th)

Match referee: Mike Procter