Very interesting, very flavourful -- but darn it all, waspsmakejam, now I keep thinking dire cricketer too! (And then you give them class levels, and you make a dire cricketer barbarian, and then you have very geeky jokes about certain Australian cricketers... ;D)
Incidentally, New Zealand's at a similar latitude to the UK, and they have this giant cricket called a
weta... so no climate problems there.