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Maxwell feels the heat in Bangladesh

Allrounder reveals he had an early brush with heatstroke after arriving in Bangladesh

Allrounder Glenn Maxwell revealed Australia's intense training regime coupled with the sapping Bangladeshi heat saw him fall ill with heatstroke less than a week out from the first Test in Dhaka.

With their only tour game scrapped ahead of the series-opener in Mirpur, Australia's 14-man squad have been put through the wringer this week at the height of the country's humid monsoon season.

While Maxwell admitted he initially struggled to come to grips with the grueling conditions, he's in no doubt to resume his place in Australia’s middle-order for the first Test on Sunday.

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"I copped a bit of heatstroke on the first day, which wasn't a good start," a smiling Maxwell told reporters on Wednesday.

"I think just doing some running outside then had to go inside to do some fitness testing, and then going back outside (to train) didn't help too much.

"Basically my body shut down a little bit but I was fine after a bit of an ice bath and plenty of fluids."


Opting not to tempt the weather gods, Australia rearranged an intense three-hour session planned for Wednesday and instead held it Tuesday while the sun was shining.

It proved a smart move as heavy overnight thunderstorms set in on Wednesday morning, and the tourists were an hour into training in the early afternoon before more rain arrived.

"With the morning rain and the overnight rain, I think all the moisture's coming out of the ground and making it quite sweaty work for us," Maxwell said.

"But it's been good, we've got a lot out of the last few days, basically putting on the finishing touches for day one."

The Sher-e Bangla National Cricket Stadium's pitch remains a mystery to him, but Maxwell says they have no reason not to expect a turning track.

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And while subcontintanal wickets have typically brought Australia undone in recent years, Maxwell says their pre-tour camp to Darwin, along with the lessons learned from their 1-2 series defeat to India earlier this year, has them primed to counter Bangladesh's strong spin attack.

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"As we showed in India, we probably prefer those wickets where the ball beats our defence and we're able to sort of just play the line," he said.

"When it's spinning big consistently, you can hold your defence and you can trust that the ball's going to miss the outside edge.

"We put extreme conditions in (place for) Darwin with the wickets, where we made them ridiculously tough to bat on and guys tested themselves really well during that week

"The wickets were perfect. Even coming here and having a couple of hits on these wickets, it's very similar to what we were facing in Darwin, if not a little bit easier I suppose in the nets.

"I think the guys are more than well-equipped to handle whatever comes at us in this first Test.”

Australia in Bangladesh 2017

Australia squad: Steve Smith (c), David Warner (vc), Ashton Agar, Jackson Bird, Hilton Cartwright, Pat Cummins, Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Glenn Maxwell, Matthew Renshaw, Mitchell Swepson, Matthew Wade.

Bangladesh squad: Mushfiqur Rahim (c), Tamim Iqbal, Soumya Sarkar, Imrul Kayes, Shakib Al Hasan, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Sabbir Rahman, Nasir Hossain, Liton Das, Taskin Ahmed, Shafiul Islam, Mustafizur Rahman, Taijul Islam, Mominul Haque.


27-31 August First Test, Dhaka


4-8 September Second Test, Chittagong