Whichever way one looks at it, the recent tour of New Zealand by the Australian Under-19 men’s team was an unqualified success and the success was not only due to the fact that the team won three out of four matches played.

The major part of my role as National Talent Manager with Cricket Australia (CA) is my involvement with our Under-19 program.

One couldn’t help feeling for Kane Richardson in his first One Day International last weekend in Adelaide.

Tony Greig was a larger than life character who was hard to miss. Standing nearly 2 metres tall, blonde, confident and gregarious, he stood out in most groups.

The inclusion of Jackson Bird and Usman Khawaja in the squad for the Vodafone Boxing Day Test is validation that the Cricket Australia Talent Management structure is in good health, for slightly different reasons.

If one believed everything that has been written about Phillip Hughes over the past few seasons, one would think that he was the only person ever to have found Test cricket a bit challenging and been dropped from the team.

Now that all the hot air has been expended talking the talk, I look forward to the cricket starting on Friday so we can find out out which team can walk the walk.

I grew up at a time when Test cricket was the only form of the game. My early years were spent dreaming of playing for my country in Test cricket.

The Australian team is breathing a little easier following the comfortable defeat of Ireland in their first game of the ICC World Twenty20 Championship.