Gardens Oval
Gardens Oval was originally an Australian Football oval and now a cricket ground in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. It was the home of NT AFL prior to the opening of Marrara Oval. In the early 1980s the NTFL played games against AFL teams as preseason warm up games. These games were the brain child of Kevin Sheedy the coach of Essendon AFL. These games played on Australian day each year lead to many indigenous players recruited to the AFL such as Michael Long.
The first recorded cricket match on the ground came in 2002 when Northern Territory played Queensland Academy of Sport. The ground held its only first-class match in 2006 when the touring Indians against New Zealand Whites. In 2007, the ground played to four matches in the World Cricket League Division Three, a tournament for Associate members of the International Cricket Council. The ground also held five Women's One Day Internationals between Australia Women and New Zealand Women in 2007, as well as a single Women's Twenty20 International between the same sides as part of the same series.
