When the 2007 World Cup was about to start and I was all packed and ready for my 2 week Caribbean excursion to watch Scotland's games through a coconut rum soaked/heat haze blur I remember being slightly annoyed that there were these things called practice matches going on. If only I’d known they were being played I could have gone out a little earlier and caught a few of them and had an even more amazing time. but I never saw them listed in any of the matches guides and had to settle for watching them on a comfy couch in my cold living room with a hot cup of tea instead.

This World Cup, however, I found myself out in Australia a few weeks before the competition began properly celebrating 20 years of marriage to my very understanding and lovely wife. When I announced to her that the warm up matches had been listed and the venues named and that we could actually make it to the Australia V. U.A.E. match at the legendary M.C.G. she seemed less than enthused about it. Apparently spending all day and night watching a sport she couldn't care less about on our last full day together before she heads back to the wintry depths of Scotland and the ordinariness of work isn't something that she found appealing. I mentioned this to my Melbourne friend Myles and he mentioned that he'd rather go work in Scotland in the deep winter than watch a game of cricket at all.

So I was surprised to find that Myles had organised the day off his work and Wife was going to come along to the game with me after all. Perhaps it was the fact that the tickets were free that swayed them.

A morning jaunt to St Kilda to enjoy cakes and coffee also placated them for the long and strenuous effort of sitting around watching cricket all afternoon and evening and got the day off to a very pleasant start.

The last time I was at the M.C.G. was for the 1992 World Cup Final and it was impressive then but it’s even more impressive now. Redevelopment has seen it become the coliseum it always wanted to be and now the massive lights don't seem to tower as huge as they did before.

I explained to my captive audience all the rules and regulations as they came up and Myles seemed to be getting into the groove of the game

It’s a great game for chatting and talking things over in between the action and we all had a great laugh as the afternoon wore on.

The highlight came when a towering 6 seemed to zero in in the exact place we were sitting. From the moment it left the bat it was coming right for me. I stood up, readied myself, called “MINE” for it ... but alas, I couldn't get far enough back or high enough to get a full hand to it and it skimmed my fingers before crashing into the seats behind us (clipping a young girl of about 8 years old on the arm).

It was probably my one and only chance to catch a game ball and it literally slipped through my fingers !!!!

Somehow Myles ended up with the ball and he handed it to me with a cheesy grin and a friendly “There you go mate.” But his smile disappeared when I took it off him and threw it back to the waiting fielder and then we spent a long time talking about the etiquette of the game and I think I lost his interest again.

By the end of the game we had watched Australia compile a quality total and skittle U.A.E. out for a fraction of that total in 30 overs and I had converted a couple of haters of cricket into people who had a better understand of the complexities and subtleties of the amazing game.

A meal in Chinatown wrapped up a pretty perfect day and I feel like the World Cup has already started.