For Australia, this match should be as comfortable as a walk around an oval (not The Oval, winning there is much, much harder). It’s their first game since the 2-1 Ashes defeat in London last Sunday and is a warm-up for when they resume their battles with England in a Twenty20 international at Old Trafford on Sunday.

Australia’s squad has changed significantly over the past four days, with Ricky Ponting heading home with the Test specialists, and Brad Haddin having surgery on his broken left ring finger. A batch of fresh faces has arrived to join Michael Clarke, the stand-in captain, as the group starts planning for the bigger tournaments ahead. Ponting will return towards the end of the seven-match one-day series against England to fine tune before the Champions Trophy in South Africa at the end of September.

This will be the first contest between the teams outside a World Cup and is a big occasion for Scotland. They missed out on qualifying for the 2011 global event so have few opportunities to face the game’s major teams. Last Saturday they lost to Ireland in Aberdeen, scoring only 109, so facing the world champions, who are currently ranked No.3, will be even more difficult.

Australia last turned out in a one-day affair against Pakistan in May, but a more relevant gauge is their form in the Twenty20 World Cup. They were knocked out in the first round, just like Scotland.

Pity poor England – Ashes winners one minute, grist to the mill the next. “Not ideal,” is how Paul Collingwood summarised the team’s requirement this week, as they prepared to cleanse their minds of all lingering traces of glory, and get back to the drawing-board in preparation for two Twenty20s and seven ODIs against the all-too-recently vanquished Australians. First-up, however, there is a stop-over in Belfast that might, in days gone by, have represented a convivial way to unwind in a green and pleasant land renowned for its appreciation of a party.

But not in this unstinting professional era. The Irish are the pace-setters of cricket‘s second tier – streets ahead of their traditional rivals, Scotland (who take on the Aussies in Edinburgh on Friday) and itching to put one over the English, for a variety of reasons that extend beyond mere sporting instincts. For starters, there is the likely presence in England’s line-up of Eoin Morgan – a member of the Irish side that captured the imagination at the 2007 World Cup, but now a targeted man after switching his allegiance to further his career. And then there’s the large Australian influence in the squad, all of whom are gunning for vengeance for their mother country, not least the former captain, Trent Johnston.