It's a very special venue and a very special occasion.
Matthew Hayden
One of the things that I miss the most about cricket and batting in particular is that meditation of cricket, that involvement of myself - mind, body and spirit - to delivering that one specific process, which is to execute a cricket shot. It is a beautiful feeling; it is very hard to replicate.
This game is something Australians really look forward to.
When I came to the high-performance arena, I was kind of a one-off in a lot of ways. I was as much an iron man as much as I was a cricketer. Having surfed, fished, hunted, that was just a natural thing.
As a civilian not playing sport, to get that sense of real belonging and feeling how you are progressing through the day is what I loved and miss.
It's a fun day, a day which kicks off the start of our tour, it's got great tradition - Australian cricketers just love tradition - and it's been a really pleasant day.
One-day cricket is a very important part of our play. We've got a long way to go until the next World Cup and for us it's one ruthless game after another where we can play well.
Both sides have been playing tremendous cricket over a couple of years and they're both very good units.
Everything this series is being built up to be - I think it's going to live up to those expectations.
My brother Gary, who was my coach, five years my elder, studied human movements at Queensland University in Brisbane. We used to train together every day, and we'd train for so long that at the end of a session, we would physically almost collapse.
