Can Weatherald's tinkerings stand the test in Darwin homecoming?

Everywhere you go this week in Darwin you will see Jake Weatherald look-alikes.

The original is unmistakable. The shaved head, the hooped earrings, the full sleeve of tattoos on his right arm, the idiosyncratic gait. He is one of a kind.

His mates from Darwin, and proud Territorians who feel close to him by association, are set to don fake bald caps, beards, and sleeve tattoos to honour him during the first Test against Bangladesh this week, with two men starting early by dressing as him and asking questions at a press conference on Monday, three days out from Thursday's start.

But Weatherald is hoping to look slightly different at the crease when he opens the batting against Bangladesh after an Ashes series where his set-up got exposed by full balls darting in at high pace.

"There's been a few tinkerings," Weatherald said. "Hopefully, someone sees it. It feels like I'm completely different, but everyone says I'm still pretty similar, which is sort of what I wanted a little bit. I didn't want to change anything dramatically.

"I was trying to understand what I was really good at and what I do well in first-class cricket and what I could improve on, and I did well on the Ashes, and [have been working on] what I could slightly adjust to make a better game plan overall. And I think I've done that. So I'm pretty pumped to go out and show it hopefully."

A change was noticeable on Monday as he faced Australia's quicks in a centre-wicket net on Marrara's second ground which hosted the Bangladesh tour match over the weekend. Having played well to post a half-century in a practice match against the same quicks in Brisbane last week during Australia's pre-tour camp, Weatherald looked like he was trying to stand a little taller at the crease to get back towards the set-up he had in the 2018 BBL final where he carved Jofra Archer to all parts of Adelaide Oval. That old version of Weatherald had a high ceiling and a low floor in terms of output in domestic cricket.

When he moved to Tasmania he developed a much more crouched stance that he stuck with through the Ashes. It had helped him pile up runs more consistently in Sheffield Shield cricket where sub-130kph seamers have dominated by attacking top-order batters full on a fourth-stump line. Weatherald's low position, with his head outside off, helped him counter that line of attack with one of the highest Shield averages to that line of bowling, thanks to powerful cover drives with his head over the ball and cut shots to balls only fractionally short. His best Test innings of 72 in Brisbane last summer was full of such strokes. Full, straight balls at 130kph didn't trouble him in Shield cricket with time to adjust around his front pad. But at 135kph-plus in the Ashes they did. Archer (twice), Brydon Carse and Ben Stokes pinned him lbw four times out of nine in the series with similar deliveries.

Whether the change holds under Test conditions remains to be seen. One other shift he made during his stint at Leicestershire earlier this winter was to add a trigger movement, loading into his back foot and unweighting his front at release in similar style to his partner Travis Head, to again put himself in a better position for anything fired straight. Although the pace threat was not there in the County Championship, he still prospered with 483 runs at 60.37 from nine innings, including a century and three half-centuries, while striking at 80.76.

"It was a good opportunity to put in play technical things while still playing," Weatherald said. "The conditions there were very conducive to improving my technique. Obviously, getting the ball straighter, hitting the stumps a lot more. So that was a great learning curve for me."

It is a special week for Weatherald, a Darwin native who gets the rarest of rare chances to represent his country in the town of his birth, given Test cricket has not been played in the city for 22 years and only twice ever. Weatherald watched as a spectator in 2003 and 2004. But he had to move thousands of kilometres south to start a professional cricket career in Adelaide, and even further south to the polar opposite climes of Hobart, a move that vaulted him into the Test team.

But at 31, averaging 22.33 from ten innings, his opportunity for further Tests might also be rare without a score against Bangladesh. Former players and commentators, including Mark Waugh, have said he is under pressure to keep his place. Weatherald, the typically pragmatic Territorian that he is, agrees.

"He's just probably stating the obvious, isn't he, to be fair," Weatherald said. "You are required to make runs all the time when you go out there, and I've got a good opportunity to play two games, hopefully, and make runs in four innings to do that. If I don't do that, then yeah, I'll put fate in someone else's hands."

But Australia's selectors see value in Weatherald. They liked the partnership he formed with Head last summer, during which they shared four half-century stands across the series that went a long way to setting up three victories in Perth, Brisbane and Sydney.