When I bragged to my classmates about my weekend in the Queensland dressing sheds with Ian Botham, Alan Border and Ian Healy I was lifted to legend status. Not to mention the time a senior Australian player called our home and I answered the phone.
However, it was never enough to satisfy – I fantasised constantly that I would be in the sheds, not as the son of the chaplain, but as a player - pulling on the baggy green, lifting the timber and cracking a four off my perfect square cut.
This fantasy filled my mind between the hours of 8.45am-3.00pm every school day and resulted in some poor scholastic outcomes.
Sadly, the highlight of my cricketing career was hitting that perfect cut shot for four, promptly followed by me being caught at silly mid. I never played the game again and my fantasies of cricketing greatness were captured by my ever-flourishing rugby league career (not).
20 years on and I have reborn my cricketing fantasies through the fast growing 'Fantasy Cricket' game online. Fantasy Cricket allows tragics like me to relive the dream in an organised competition and without breaking a sweat.
Fantasy Cricket is an adaptation of American fantasy sporting competitions where a person picks their preferred team and competes against other teams based on the real life results of the players they choose in their team.
It's believed over 100,000 people are playing a form of fantasy cricket throughout the world with the fastest growing fantasy cricket market being India.
The 'fantasy' sporting concept has been around for over 50 years when Harvard maths geeks joined together to pick baseball teams and compare the stats of the players they chose after each game.
However, it wasn't until 1980 that the concept took pace in a New York restaurant. Of course as computers became more prevalent, and with the advent of the internet, fantasy leagues began to grow from just baseball and into most major sporting competitions, including cricket.
If you've got that little niggling in your stomach of wanting to reignite your childhood dreams of cricketing prowess, than it's time you opened up a fantasy cricket account.
The following links will take you to the most popular fantasy competitions in Australia.
fantasy.cricket.com
fantasy.espncricinfo.com/fantasy/fantasyleague/user/home.htmlwww.cricketinc.com