When someone mentions the sport of cricket, many things come immediately to mind. For example, an esky full of beer, 30-plus degree heat, flies and sunscreen.

Normally, numb toes, two jumpers and a bad cold that lasts three days aren’t part of the equation.

I was one of the brave souls that fronted up to watch the AIS Emerging Cricket squad’s run chase against New Zealand at Caloundra’s Roy Henzel Oval on Thursday night.

The conditions for playing cricket were about as suitable as Paris Hilton playing the Virgin Mary in a nativity scene. One of the AIS Centre of Excellence officials announced the temperature was four degrees at one stage.

Even South Australian batsman Mark Cosgrove was muttering on the sidelines that, “I can’t feel my toes any more”. Another Aussie player complained that he was, quote, "freezing my tits off".

To be fair to the organisers of the Four Nations Emerging Cricket tournament that began on the Coast last week, they weren’t to know that the game would be played on the coldest night ever recorded on the Sunshine Coast.

After they witnessed the uncomfortable conditions that greeted the players four nights ago, they should have bitten the bullet and rescheduled Australia’s following matches against Indian side Karnataka on Friday and South Africa last night to day games.

Some would argue they were catering for those who wished to head to the ground after work.

But of the members of small crowd that was present on Thursday night, most were elderly cricket tragics who would sit through a Hey Dad marathon if it meant watching a game of cricket.

There certainly weren’t many kids, who would have been tucked up in their blankies at home. I believe they would have gotten a bigger roll-up if they played from 10am-5pm rather than 2pm-9pm, when families could have headed down after picking up the kids from school to watch the end of the game.

Taking a dive

The word “dive” can mean many things.

It can be used to describe the act of plunging headfirst into water, or in champion American diver Greg Louganis’ case, the act of plunging headfirst into the diving board.

It can be used to describe a place you may have visited that you weren’t overly impressed with (ie, gee whiz, that bar we went to last night was an absolute dive).

As far as football is concerned, diving is defined as “the act of deliberately throwing yourself to the ground after little or no contact from an opposing player”.

Watching the theatrics of the Omani players after they took a shock 1-0 lead over the Socceroos recently was more pathetic than those 30-year-olds who dress up in wizard outfits to go and watch the latest Harry Potter movie.

FIFA should introduce a clause where if a stretcher comes onto the field for an injured player, they cannot return to the game.