But my spirits needed a quicker lift than waiting for the debut of Tom Hawkins. Thankfully, I found solace in Yani, the T-shirted manager here. "Where you from?" he asked in that Greek way that wants to know. When I told him, he recited the postcodes of all the Melbourne suburbs on the Epping line. "Northcote, 3070. Thornbury, 3071." He had once lived in Brunswick.
He was the rarest of all things — a Greek cricket lover. "You let the f---ing Pommies win the Ashes?" he said, throwing his hands in the air. "After 19 years. And you let the Swiss win the America's Cup. What a joke. They don't have the ocean."
He continued: "Is Merv Hughes still a selector?"
"Yes," I said. He shook his head. "And so is David Boon."
"Bab-Boon," he laughed. "You tell that fat Tasmanian there is a Greek in Santorini who knows cricket is the beautiful game. The Greeks think soccer is the beautiful game. But it is not so strategic as cricket."
He then told me about being in London in the '70s ("f---ing Geoffrey Boycott!") and the beauty of Viv Richards, Gordon Greenidge, Gavaskar, Kapil, Manjrekar, Lillee and Thommo. He asked about the Chappells.
