But Save Your Legs! is about more than cricket. Teddy (Stephen Curry) is a cricket tragic whose whole life has revolved around the game, his D-grade park cricket team, the Abbotsford Anglers, and his friends. But now they're in their mid-30s they are moving on with their lives - careers, mortgages, wives and children are taking priority over cricket, even for his best friends Rick (Brendan Cowell) and Stav (Gameau). Ted makes a last, desperate attempt to keep things going: he convinces his boss Sanjeet to let the Anglers ''represent Australia'' on a cricket tour of India.

Gameau says Save Your Legs! is about ''men breaking up with each other. They've reached a point in their lives where they've got to grow up and devote themselves to their families.''

Cowell wrote the script for Save Your Legs! which was inspired by a true story. It marks the feature directorial debut of Boyd Hicklin - who made a short documentary with the same title about his own cricket team's adventures - and was completed in remarkably swift fashion.

Gameau - whose previous film credits include The Tracker and Balibo - says it had to be ready for its premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival in August (general release is in January).

He played cricket in high school but hadn't wielded a bat or ball for a decade before his double header this year so training was necessary for him and the other actors.

''It was good to get back in the nets again,'' he says, although he makes no claims to Chappellian cricketing prowess: ''I'm still more suited to D-grade.''

He says his film character, Stav, is ''a very unconscious male who lives in a bubble''. He's big-hearted but in-your-face, the alpha-male type: even his family members are only just inside that bubble - and he needs to learn to expand the space around him.

''I certainly had elements of that in me in my 20s,'' Gameau says: like his character, he had to go through a process of growing up and letting go. Part of that was his own visit to the subcontinent.

''India will crack anyone,'' he says.

''It lays you bare and forces you to become more vulnerable.''

The poverty is so in your face and the sense of so many people struggling to get by … puts perspective on how much space and wealth we have in Australia, he says.

Now 36, he's given up drug-taking (''in my 20s I put that to bed''), alcohol, sugar and, most recently, cigarettes.

So does he have any vices?

He thinks for a moment.

''Watching television?'' he ventures.

''I don't think I have any.''

Except, perhaps, overwork. He's been in a relationship for the past four years with Winners & Losers star Zoe Tuckwell-Smith but has been a regular on the Irish TV series Raw which has kept him away for months at a time for the past few years.

Now his stint on that show is over but he's far from idle, just closer to home. He won first prize at Tropfest last year for his short film Animal Beatbox and is keen to take on more projects behind the camera.

''As an actor you can feel like a puppet,'' he says. This was especially so when he worked on TV in the US: he noticed a big difference between the attitude in America and the attitude in Ireland and Australia.

''In America it's more segregated between cast and crew and money is the dominant factor: the show is the important thing,'' he says, with people in booths giving endless detailed directions.

''I don't feel any huge pull to go back. If a really good part came up I'd go, but I'm not going to chase it.''

In Ireland and Australia, he says, there's ''less emphasis on work and more humanity and camaraderie in the relationship between actors and crew''.

He likes the feeling of being in charge of a project. With some friends he is working on a documentary about the harmful effects of sugar.

Giving it up four years ago, he says, made ''a massive difference'' to his wellbeing.

''I had erratic swings in mood and was seeing the damage on me and other people,'' he says.

''It took 10 days for my craving to go.''

That's a long-term project he will work on between other acting jobs, including a forthcoming remake of the Australian horror film Patrick. And he and other Save Your Legs! cast members will be working to promote the film during the cricket season, part of which will involve attending matches. Which is, he admits, not a bad way to spend a summer.

■ Save Your Legs! is on at Arc Cinema, National Film and Sound Archive, on Sunday, November 11, at 6.15pm.