Sapping heat, crocodiles await in England’s final Ashes warm-up match

MELBOURNE: England’s final warm-up match before taking on Australia in the Ashes will see them play in the sweltering heat of the northern Queensland city of Townsville, where huge crocodiles bathing in local waters are a common sighting.

With temperatures regu- larly pushing into the high 30s in November in Townsville, Joe Root’s team should be well acclimatised by the time they head south to Brisbane for the first Test at the Gabba starting on November 23.

England will play a fourday match against a Cricket Australia XI from November 15 at Townsville’s Tony Ireland stadium, which lies adjacent to the Ross River, a notable meeting place for saltwater and freshwater crocodiles.

After a hard day’s play, the tourists might think twice about cooling off in the coastal city’s lagoons or taking a swim off the foreshore, where mammoth crocodiles occasionally cause local beaches to close.

Wildlife workers hauled out a 4.7m saltwater “bruiser” that was swimming about 50m off the popular Strand Beach last year.

Townsville media have reported an “explosion” of crocodile encounters this year, with triple the number of calls to wildlife authorities to May, compared with the same period last year.

Crocodiles and people have long co-existed peacefully in the muggy city of 180 000, but the encroachment of the ancient reptiles into public areas has raised alarm bells.

Politicians in the opposition party have tabled a controversial culling proposal which would authorise wildlife officers to shoot problem croco- diles if unable to remove them quickly from high-risk areas.

The England team will also do well to apply insect repellent liberally in a city which suffers occasional outbreaks of dengue fever, and where the main local waterway coined the name for the Ross River virus, a debilitating tropical disease borne by mosquitoes.

England’s Townsville tour would follow less intrepid warm-up stops in Perth and Adelaide, Cricket Australia said.

The tourists’ first hit-out will be a two-day match from November 4 against a Western Australian XI at the WACA.