does ravi like pizza?

People may not know this, but Cricket is only Australia’s number one sport by default.

If Victorians and NSWelshman didn’t hate each other so much, they might have decided on one brand of football, and then cricket wouldn’t have been the biggest sport in Australia.

If Ravi Shastri, Bishen Bedi and Kris Srikkanth walked down Lygon st on a Friday night, people wouldn’t look twice.

Well maybe at Ravi, but he’s a good looking man, and the ladies do like their brown sugar.

Australian's are in love with all sports, well, let me rephrase, Australian's are in love with all sports they win alot.

If you were to ask me if Australians were excited about the upcoming series against India, I’d say "not really" in a who knows, why are you asking me that kind of voice.

Australians don’t rate a team until said team defeats them, we are a simple people like that.

Beating Pakistan, England or anyone else doesn’t raise alarm bells for the average Australian fan, if India beats Australia, then next time they will get excited before the series.

It can be put as simply as this.

In India, cricket is a religion.

In Australia, winning is a religion.

Indians get caught up in the stats, the results, the details of cricket. They know about domestic players from all around the world. They find out details about cricket, they live and breathe it. Cricket stops the nation, the players are thought of as Gods, even players like Lillee and Bradman who never played there.

Australians are a different breed. Cricket isn’t that important here. Most Australian cricket fans couldn't name any players from Bangladesh, they wouldn't know who Dale Steyn is or care that Mishbah Ul Haq has a big behind.

In Australia if the cricket is on, and its news time, the news comes on (channel) 9 times out of 10. No questions asked. Channel 9 are the only channel in Australia that shows live international cricket in Australia, so when they go to the news, no one can watch the cricket.

When Shane Warne first claimed the world record, channel 9 were showing the Price is right, with some bogan chick winning a washing machine.

Cricket almost never gets on the front page in Melbourne or Sydney, but footballers of both rugby and aussie rules get it with idiotic monotony.

If I went out on the street and polled 10 people as to who the Indian captain is, they wouldn’t know.

If I polled the whole boxing day crowd before they got to the ground (not the day 2-5 crowd) only 30% would know it was Anil.

An Indian recently asked me if there is a sense of excitement over this series, the answer is no.

Last year there was 10 times more excitement than this, England had defeated Australia, this was to be a real test, and then Australia bent England over and gave them the biggest pounding this side of a Miike film.

So even with India’s improving team of elderly gentleman and young bucks, the Australian public aren’t really all that interested in it.

But Boxing day does strange things to people. For instance one boxing day i was with this chick, and for ages she wouldn't let me... Actually that has nothing to do with cricket. Never mind.

If India win the first Test, or even the Second test, then every tom d1ck and larry in Australia will get excited over it.

Until then, it is summer as usual.www.cricketwithballs.com "the hooking & pulling specialists"