NYSD regular Ian West has spent the last five winters in Melbourne, playing club cricket.

THE temperature in Melbourne is rising quickly and it has nothing to do with the weather.

Australia’s convincing victory in the third Test has sent the country into meltdown.

It looks like the first three days at least will be sell-outs as 85,000 tickets were pre-sold for the opening day and since the win in Perth the rest have gone like hot cakes.

Boxing Day at the MCG is one of the great occasions in world sport and with so much resting on the result the atmosphere will be electric.

I’m currently in New Zealand, where I hope to get some net time with the Pakistani tourists in Auckland, but I arrive back in Melbourne on Christmas Day and am lucky enough to have tickets for the first two days.

Christmas in Australia still seems a bit weird, even after five years.

Walking round the shops in sweltering heat with decorations on display seems bizarre.

Nor does it seem right to have the odd sweaty Santa on show and carols belting out in the arcades.

Never mind, I understand the weather is atrocious back in the North-East so I’ll be raising a beer to everyone back home as I tough it out on the beach at St Kilda or Port Melbourne with the barbie sizzling away.

THE Perth drubbing still lingers and I’ve been surprised by the way the effect of Jimmy Anderson’s 20,000-mile round trip to attend the birth of his baby has been played down.

At times Jimmy looked to be drained of energy, and I’m not surprised given the way jet-lag can affect you.

Whenever I come over here from England it takes me at least three or four days to get back to feeling normal, with the body clock all over the place.

I remember once bowling and fielding for 80 overs in a club game just three days after landing, and this in 35 degree heat. I slept for the next 36 hours!

There were only 15 days between the two Tests and with England needing each of their four-man attack to be firing on all cylinders it may just have been wiser to have rested him for the third Test, although no doubt Stuart Broad’s injury reduced options.

ONE thing Jimmy wasn’t short of was a word or two for Mitch Johnson, although this verbal barrage seemed to backfire spectacularly.

There may be snow at home but there’s always been plenty of sledging in Oz .

The most remarkable and amusing I can recount from club cricket occurred in a match last year when one of my teammates, who has an artificial eye, suffered a torrent of abuse while he was at the crease.

This went on for about an hour and in the end our lad had had enough.

He ripped off his batting glove, plucked out his glass eye and hurled it at the startled bowler shouting ‘I’m a better player than you – and I’ve only got one ******* eye!’ The colour drained from the bowler’s face and we never heard another squeak from him all afternoon.

There’s no middle ground with the Aussies.

Just ten days ago they were calling for everyone’s head on a stick, now the glory days are evidently back.

OUR club Christmas party last Saturday night was a buoyant affair.

Spirits were high after a nail-biting three-run win sent us into the mid-season break on top of the table, and after a few beers my teammates spent the rest of the evening telling me how England would be trampled on at the MCG.

England played there less than two weeks ago against Victoria.

A ponderous draw resulted with the wicket low, slow and turgid.

Frantic efforts are currently going on to ensure a much different type of surface will be unveiled on Boxing Day.