Mackay hosts first international Test cricket match at Harrup Park

Barry Jansen mortgaged his house to help buy land for a cricket arena and didn't tell his wife for five years.

More than 40 years later, history is being made on the same field as the Queensland city of Mackay hosts its first international Test cricket match.

Mr Jansen said in the late 1980s the cricket association wanted to expand but needed financial backing.

Three members took an extraordinary personal risk and mortgaged their homes to help make it happen.

"We couldn't afford to pay our groundsmen without extending our facility. We didn't have the finance. We had park land with some value and that was all," he said.

A government grant and a bank loan guaranteed by three members' homes helped fund the expansion.

Mr Jansen said there were a "couple of quiet moments" about five years later when he told his wife he'd mortgaged their home.

"I was very, very fortunate. I always say, it [Harrup Park] is like one of the family," he said.

"My wife always says it was part of the family because we'd sunk so much in it."

In 1939 the field was a cow paddock, purchased by local farmers for 1,000 pounds to start a cricket club.

"It was definitely a risk but those people then created the vision and we had to do it," Mr Jansen said.

'True cricket lovers'

Grandstands and hills at Harrup Park's Great Barrier Reef Arena were packed out with Bangladeshi locals waving flags and placards, with a "tiger" or two in the mix.

Shagufta Hasan, who described herself as a "true cricket lover", said Mackay's Bangladeshi community was cricket obsessed.

"It doesn't matter if Bangladesh are playing or not, we're always watching," she said.

"We have 32 Bangladeshi families in Mackay so when the news came we all are very excited."

Scoring dream

Mackay resident Mel Dwyer, one of two Cricket Australia official scorers at the game, said it was a dream come true to score a Test in her home town.

She made her Test scoring debut at the Gabba in 2024 for Australia vs West Indies.

Matches are scored on paper and she said the slower pace of a Test made the job "a little bit easier" than a T20 match.

"There are plenty of sets of eyes watching and there's lots of talking going on as far as what happens with every ball. We have to confirm everything," she said.

Ms Dwyer started scoring about 12 years ago when her youngest child started playing representative cricket.

"I just put my hand up to help out with those games because I found that if I sat on the sideline with the other parents, I would be too engrossed in conversations with them and miss what was actually going on the field," she said.

Ms Dwyer grew up in a family of cricket lovers in a house full of memorabilia celebrating Sir Donald Bradman and the Invincibles.

"I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would be working in cricket and scoring Test matches. A five-day test match would be absolutely amazing," she said.

Strong pitch

Peter Kazakoff, head curator of Great Barrier Reef Arena, said perfect weather and just the right amount of rain earlier in the week combined for a strong pitch.

The wicket in Mackay has the same clay soil profile as the Gabba.

"We source it from the same paddock down in Peak Crossing just at the back of Ipswich," he said.

Mr Kazakoff said selectors, coaches and players had been "blown out of the water" by the playing surface.

"We've gone from being a country cricket ground to an international test cricket venue. It's quite remarkable."