Darwin, June 19: Two drop-in pitches were installed here today for Australia's Test match against Bangladesh at Marrara Oval next month. The pitches were split in half and lowered into the ground by crane before being merged with a ratchet mechanism.

The process took several hours, involving several semi-trailers and heavy lifting equipment, with each pitch weighing a massive 18 tonnes.

Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC) groundsman Tony Ware said the soil and steel-based structure would make a good wicket for the first cricket Test to be staged in Australia's tropical north.

"It is really just a quite a heavy, sticky clay that obviously goes hard when it's dry," Ware said.

"The pitch itself won't play overly quick. It would probably be as quick as a lot of Test venues around the world, but probably not as quick as our wickets are in Melbourne for instance.

"These (pitches) are only new and will take a little while to settle down, but I still think we will get a really good Test wicket out of the soil and the venue we have."

Bureau Report