Life Down Under with Hampshire's Iain Brunnschweiler

WE are fast learning some lessons about cricket in Australia - and a vital one that has become apparent so far is that when you are batting, you have to put a high price on your wicket.

This is not just because the bowlers are of a high quality, but is simply due to the fact that three weeks can pass between competitive knocks.

Club cricket is played over the course of two weekends out here, 92 overs being bowled on each Saturday, and if your team has bowled on the second Saturday of one game, and then bowled first the next, then 21 days can pass between hits.

This in itself gives the incentive to not throw away any chances you get at the crease.

The way the game works, though, is that two full innings can be completed over the two Saturdays, which gave rise to an interesting situation for my team this weekend.

We actually lost on the first innings - falling seven runs short of our target - but then by bowling the opposition out again, and successfully chasing the target, we managed to gain an 'outright' victory. The opposition scored points for their first innings win, but we picked up double by beating them over the full game.

In this way, in two Saturday's we have managed to win a complete two innings match - which is great. This means therefore, that some matches give you two bites of the batting cherry, which can make up for the potential gaps between innings mentioned above.

The thriving social lives of our different teams have been continuing recently. With the Test match being staged here in Perth this week, Melville CC, Irfan Shah and James Schofield's club side, held a Test Match Dinner - quite a prestigious event with guest speaker Sir Richard Hadlee topping the bill.

Perth CC held a Test Match breakfast, with all the boys gathering early on the first morning of the big game.

After filling ourselves from the 'barbie', the crew all made their way to the WACA for the start of play. We took up a position on the 'hill', but my cheering for the New Zealanders as they clocked up nearly 300 runs on the first day made me slightly unpopular with the locals!

One of the lads brought a cool-box filled with about 400 freshly cooked 'yabbies'. These are sea creatures, a bit like mini lobsters, which give about as much meat as a king prawn (after careful peeling). It was a very nice 'Aussie' moment - on the hill at the WACA, eating yabbies with the boys, and enjoying the cricket in the sun. It's times like these that are very rewarding; we've been putting in plenty of hard work during the week, and are also trying to enjoy our time off as much as possible too!