A lush, English-style cricket ground is the last thing you'd expect to see in stubbled, drought-stricken western central Victoria. Nevertheless, here it is.

Aquilino Tinetti, a Swiss-Italian Australian of many generations standing, has created his own 'field of dreams' at Shepherds Flat, 10km (6.2mi) north of Daylesford. Nestled bizarrely amongst bald, sheep-nibbled hills is the centrepiece of Cricket Willow - a traditional, baize-green cricket oval, complete with whitewashed picket fence. The complex also houses a cricket museum, a bat factory and its own willow groves. The first English bat willow on the site (and in the country) was propagated from a cutting shipped to Test umpire Robert Crockett (a local) by English captain Archie McLaren in 1902.