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Moonee Valley cricketers Clare Ardern and Tien Ha had been due to represent our club on the MCG on Day 4 of the Boxing Day Test.

However, due to the early demise of the Aussies, they missed out on their big chance.

Clare, the captain of our women's team, and Tien, a past captain and team administrator, were to compete against representives of seven other clubs in a 400 metre dash and a sprint during the tea break. However, the match was finished before then and the crowd had all gone home.

Both Clare (at far right) and Tien have played in the men's teams at Moonee Valley as well as with our women's team, and are more than capable as cricketers.

If they won the Club Cricket Challenge, Clare and Tien were going to win $1000 for Moonee Valley plus a bat autographed by the Australian squad for the Vodaphone Ashes Series. However, Cricket Victoria will try to reschedule the challenge for a Twenty20 match or one-day game at the MCG.

We wanted our supporters at the MCG for Day 4 of the Test to cheer on Clare and Tien at the tea break. However, hopefully they'll still get their chance to perform on one of the great arenas of world sport.

Christmas Cheer at Moonee Valley 

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Cricket makes the world go round at Moonee Valley

Moonee Valley's latest cricket import, Ihtisham Uddin, has arrived in Australia from Pakistan, and has lost no time in settling in to training.

Ihtisham, who as recently as a month ago was playing first class cricket back home, is match-fit and raring to go.

He joins a veritable United Nations vying for spots in Moonee Valley's First Eleven.

And while there are tensions between the countries on the sub-continent, that's just not the case at Moonee Valley - as the picture here shows.

Welcoming Ihtisham are our champion Arosha Perera (left), from Sri Lanka, and chairman of selectors Amit Chaudhary (right), who came from India.

When you include Joel Wilford, Kris Garland and Simon Thornton from England, you can see cricket really does make the world go round at Moonee Valley.

Amit Chaudhary played a key role in liaising with Ihtisham as he worked through his visa application, and was the first person from our Club to welcome him when he arrived on November 10.