IRELAND head into this weekend's World Cup opener smarting from a winter of setbacks. Injuries, disrupted tours and humiliating defeats have put Phil Simmons's men on the back foot before they take on West Indies in Nelson.

But one man at least goes into the game in the most positive frame of mind - because he knows he's lucky to be there.

When the squad was announced before Christmas the most shocking omission was that of Max Sorensen. The Hills' paceman was an ever present opening the bowling in the previous ten ODIs and the stand-out performer in last summer's interpros,

Sorensen took his omission well, and worked hard when brought to Dubai for pre-World Cup training as a net bowler. It was there in the desert that he learned of his reprieve because of Tim Murtagh's injury.

"Phil texted me the night before and said ‘I need to meet you for breakfast'. The net bowlers were supposed to go training at two o'clock but Phil said 'you're not going training, you're going to the World Cup.' I had to keep it quiet until the press release went out, and he announced it to the team at our meeting at five o'clock."

Simmons told the press that he had been impressed by how Sorensen reacted to being omitted first time around.

"It hurt a lot, but you just can't do anything about it really”, says the bowler. “It's easy to say I don't want to do anything, I'm not going to go out to the bar, I'm not going to do this, it's not going to get you anywhere.

"I knew, personally, that I should have been on the squad, but I took the news in the positive way and just said I want to make sure that I got out there and worked my arse off and make sure I get back."

Sorensen had broken into the team due to his reputation as the fastest bowler in Leinster where he helped The Hills to two All-Ireland finals in three seasons. But his club form fell away last year for which he blames himself.

“In hindsight I could have put myself under too much pressure over the last year leading up to the World Cup, maybe trying to change a few things in terms of run up. It was just me, I wanted to do it myself to really take myself up to another level. That's the type of person I am, I'll always push myself to be better and get better.

"I'm starting to understand my batting, what my role is on the team as a batsman down the order. I try and keep the strike rate up - trying to score off every ball, and if the ball is in my area to try and hit it out of the park."

The 29-year-old Johannesburg native relishes the chance to appear at a World Cup, even with the balance of power now so tilted away from bowlers. This winter has seen several huge totals, and batsmen are now aiming at 150-200 when in the past teams usually won if one player scored a century.

"The only thing that I'm thinking about is excitement," he says, of the prospect of bowling to Chris Gayle or AB de Villiers.

"I'm looking forward to it, the experience and the challenge. You're playing against the best players in the world. I think there's more pressure on them getting out to me."

Sorensen has played alongside Quinton de Kock and Aaron Phangiso in South African club cricket, and played against another of their stars.

“I played against Faf du Plessis before he had broken into the Titans side -- I got him out, snicked off behind. I'm looking forward to bowling to him again.”

South Africa are one of the tournament favourites but “Maxie” believes Ireland can take them.

“I reckon if you put them under a bit of pressure you don't know what could happen.If we get a couple of early wickets, get de Villiers out early doors... They also seem a seamer light, they're missing Jacques Kallis badly. If we can limit the damage done by the seamers and the likes of Vernon Philander, you can back yourself to get a few runs off the others pretty quick.

“We're playing them on the flattest ground in Australia - Canberra - so take Dale Steyn's swing out of the equation. Without his swing, I think he bowls straight at you so your biggest threat is probably Morne Morkel. We've had one or two games out there in Canberra so they obviously know the ground so that's also good."

From being outside the 15, it suddenly appears as if Sorensen is pencilled into the starting 11.

He's certainly won the approval of former Australian legend Brett Lee, who worked with the Irish bowlers this week in Sydney. “Max seemed, in particular, to be bowling extremely well”, Lee said. “He's got good pace.”

Sorensen knows he's been blessed to get a late call and intends to make the most of it.

"If I get a chance to play it'll be amazing, if I don't I'm going to enjoy the tournament as much as I can, work hard, and train hard out and do the best to make it apparent that I should be in that side of 11”, he said. "I'll work my guts off to do that."