In front of me the rest of the Irish team are sitting, talking over a bad defeat to Australia.

Yet still, it's a long way from recent years. Kyle McCallan is sipping on a coke and when I look at him, I think of the poor practical jokes he's played, or tried to play on us, over the years. Schoolboy stuff. But he got what was coming to him. Take the Inter-Continental Cup in Namibia a few years back.

He went out one day and left his key in his hotel door.

When he came back everything was gone from that room. Bed, clothes, television, the whole lot. And we haven't let this World Cup change us. We were down in Guyana for quite a while and needed distractions. We told him there were a couple of world-renowned journalists waiting for him in a cafe. So he went. We texted him and said they were delayed, that they were up against a deadline. He waited even longer.

As a group we've been waiting for a tournament like this our whole lives. It's an incredible experience but we haven't forgotten that we can get caught up so easily in all this. Once we are here we have to work even harder to keep it like this. Otherwise, it's all for nothing and it's why the loss to Australia disappointed us so much. We were better than that and maybe some people were looking for an excuse to put us down a little. A quick look at the result and we gave them that opportunity. It's why today's game against Bangladesh is so vital for us. We need to win. When we qualified for the Super Eights we realised all the games were going to be tough but this was one we really targeted. We might have pulled off a surprise along the way but this was the game we knew we could pick up two points from. To do that would prove a lot of people wrong when they complain about non-test teams playing in this World Cup.

I guess for me, it's all been strange though. Before we came to the Caribbean I'd played 116 times for Ireland.

I've been around a long time, seen a lot but knew I am not a first-choice player now because of the quality we have in all areas. But that doesn't mean I can relax.

Someone might slip in training. Someone might dip in form. I have to be ready. But not playing has given me the chance to do some other things and see this all from a very different perspective.

On Friday for instance, everyone asked me about the reaction of the Irish guys when they came back to the pavillion. One by one they left the field as wickets tumbled.

Later on it was defensive but I didn't see the first couple of hours of that game. Instead I was in the belly of the Kensington Oval reading letters.

All the support and all the effort people went to via An Post was phenomenal. All those letters had been due to arrive for quite some time but we got it all on Friday and I think if people took time out to write to us and encourage us, I had to read all that.

It will take a while and I'm only about one quarter of the way there but I will get through it all.

But it's amazing. I've been around a long time as I say and we've had some bad times on the pitch. But to sit here and see children send you pictures and tricolours and all sorts of messages, it means a lot. Even more so because I've seen those poor times when nobody knew us or was interested in us. I've been there when we were on the ropes against journeymen, so to come through all this has to qualify as the most amazing experience and something I never saw coming. But we've done it and as strange as it will be going back to playing in smaller games when we get home, it's our duty to keep things going.

We can't let our level slip and if anything, we need to build on this. For ourselves and to try and promote cricket.

I'm from Strabane and you might say I don't have your average cricketing background. But that makes me even more privileged to play a wonderful game. Even during the Troubles I had the honour of playing a wonderful game despite what that implied. But now we can encourage people in a much more healthy way to play the game. And that starts with a win today.

Peter Gillespie made his debut for Ireland in 1995 and now has 117 caps