I am in Antarctica, standing nine miles out from Cape Evans on the iced-over surface of the ocean. My weight is supported only by a membrane of frozen seawater. It is a gorgeous, windless day. Or to be more precise it is a gorgeous, windless night, for despite the sunshine the time is half past three in the morning.

Behind me tower the massive, smoking bulk of Mount Erebus, a 13,000ft active volcano smothered from top to toe in creamy snow, and the harder black wedge of its lieutenant, Mount Terror.

In the distance a man in a vermilion cagoule is running towards me, picking up pace as his thermal boots grip the ice. He is a teacher from New Zealand and his name is Craig. I blink my eyes dry against the piercing light and try to focus intently on the tightly gripped fingers of his right hand. When he arrives at a spot approximately 22 yards away from me he leaps high into the air and releases the object in his hand at speed in my direction. It is a cricket ball. I am holding a bat.

Well, of course, it wasn’t a real cricket bat. It was an oar. But the ball was real enough.The match was New Zealand v the Rest of the World, and I was opening the batting for the Rest of the World — the only time in my life that’s ever going to happen.

Craig’s first ball skidded harmlessly past. Cricket balls don’t bounce a great deal on ice. His second did much the same; but the third was on target. I squirted it down to long leg for what looked like an easy two. As I turned for the second run, however, I beheld an extraordinary sight: the long-leg fielder was being attacked by a gigantic seabird. An enormous skua, all beak and talons, had evidently concluded that the ball was a succulent red egg.

By the time the bird had been driven away, and I was several runs to the good, it was clear that our hushed and deserted white world was about to undergo a profound change. Some 50 yards away was the ice edge. Beyond it the deep, cerulean mirror of the Ross Sea was suddenly broken by a pod of killer whales that porpoised the length of the jagged ice edge. Next, rearing out of the water, a glistening humpback whale followed suit.

Thunderstruck with excitement, we stopped to watch. When the whales looked as if they would porpoise off into the distance, they all performed an about-turn and passed by a second time. The humpback, I swear, even cocked its head to one side to get a better view of us. Never before had I seen this many spectators at an amateur cricket match.

A leopard seal, perhaps the most fearsome predator of the southern ocean, hauled itself up on an ice floe to take a gander. Ignore the “seal” bit — think “leopard”. These creatures are 12ft long, with wicked jaws. Imagine the head of Ridley Scott’s Alien atop the body of Mike Gatting after a particularly hefty tea. One of them recently killed and ate a wetsuited British research scientist who was swimming in the Ross Sea. Luckily for us the leopard seal has a top speed of about 2mph on dry land (the Mike Gatting comparison is ever more relevant).

Clearly our thundering footsteps on the ice sheet had echoed into the depths and had brought a whole David Attenborough-documentary’s worth of wildlife up to take a look.

It was not long before the first penguin hopped out of the water, wandered across and stood there on a length, facing me down as I brandished my oar. The game halted. We gazed at each other, our eyes locked. Hell, I wasn’t scared. He was 18 inches high.

I knew by his black face and white staring eyes that the penguin now before me was an Adélie, named by the early French explorer Dumont d’Urville after his wife. As to what had prompted that romantic gesture — whether his wife had an especially beak-shaped nose or had smelt of fish — history sheds no light. Suffice to say that the Adélie is one of the more effeminate penguin species. So in strict defiance of the Antarctic convention that prohibits the disturbing of wildlife I hustled the little fellow away.

The next ball was fast, short and wide. I had a speculative welly at it and the oar shattered into a trillion shards of frozen wood. Again the game had to be halted while another oar was fetched.

The delay was an open invitation to the penguins. They came in waves, hundreds of them, crowding across the outfield, mingling with the slips, poking around at silly midoff, blocking the bowlers’ run-up and invading the wicket itself. One penguin on its own I could bully, but against wave after wave of invaders we were all helpless. For the first time — surely — in history, a cricket match would have to be cancelled because penguins had stopped play.