“It’s all happening.” Yes, we miss Bill Lawry and his unmistakable nasal twang. A Richie Benaud-sized void in cricket commentary probably will never be filled. He was the master of reticence. He was the master of them all.
When Cricket Australia signed a six-year deal with the Seven Network and Fox Sports in April 2018, giving them the rights to broadcast the Australian summer of cricket, at the expense of Channel Nine, a part of our childhood was gone. The newcomers ponied up A$1.182 billion and brought in some very good commentators. But the Australian summers were never the same again.
Cricket has evolved and the game’s power structure has changed. During the early period of Channel Nine’s broadcast, India were the also-rans, almost a butt of jokes for the ‘ugly’ Aussies. India’s ham-fisted attempts to win a Test series Down Under would never succeed. They weren’t a team to be taken seriously.
When Dennis Lillee unleashed his allegedly expletive-ridden verbal volleys at Sunil Gavaskar at the MCG in 1980-81, forcing the latter to walk off and almost forfeit the Test, the hosts clearly revelled in their feeling of superiority. Now, Pat Cummins, who captains Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL besides leading Australia, invites the tourists to the theatre, the Optus Stadium that is, and says, “g’day, mate.”
“The India-Australia series has taken over and it’s bigger than the Ashes,” said Mark Waugh. “As big as the Ashes, if not bigger,” Brett Lee concurred. The Ashes has history. The Border-Gavaskar Trophy has rivalry. The background music of the Lillee-Gavaskar face-off could have been AC/DC’s It’s A Long Way To The Top, dedicated to the Indian team. India are on top now, notwithstanding that they have arrived in Australia on the heels of a 3-0 home series whitewash against New Zealand.
India have won the last four editions of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, including back-to-back series triumphs on Australian soil. They are still a close second to Australia in the ICC Test rankings. No wonder that the bovine overtone in 7Cricket’s series promo has drawn some serious flak.
Until the turn of the century, India versus Australia largely used to be a David-Goliath story. It started to change in March 2001 at Eden Gardens, when Steve Waugh’s all-conquering side were tamed through the heroics of VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid. Harbhajan Singh deserves an honourable mention. As India began their journey to become a cricket superpower, India-Australia Test series became more frequent. An extra Test was added to the roster. This time, the two sides would be playing a five-Test series.
The IPL came in 2008 and it changed the game forever. There was a time when Australian players hesitated to come to this poverty-stricken part of the world. Lillee and Greg Chappell never played in India. Some of the touring Australian players enjoyed making fun of Indian fans – Allan Border confessing about throwing money out their Kanpur hotel window…
As the tables started to turn, Chappell became the India coach. Before that, Lillee took charge of the MRF Pace Foundation in Chennai – Indian cricket’s first step to groom quality fast bowlers. Now, India is a second home forthe majority of the Australian cricketers and coaches, thanks to the IPL.
Money Talks, the 1997 Hollywood film, was an out-and-out Los Angeles story. If Brett Ratner were asked to do a cricketing sequel of it post-2008, he probably would have chosen Mumbai, with a certain Lalit Modi as the protagonist instead of Chris Tucker. As the 2025 IPL mega auction approaches, 37 Australian cricketers would be part of it.
India dominate the game’s commercial landscape that woos every country, including cricket’s old superpowers England and Australia, to form close relations with the BCCI. An Indian team’s tour guarantees profit and Cricket Australia, whose annual accounts were A$32 million in arrears in the last fiscal year, is in need of it. But money is not the only reason why the India-Australia rivalry has become the game’s box-office contest. The quality of cricket has been top-class and the fans are wowed by that.
The Ashes, on the contrary, have been pretty lopsided over the past 10-odd years, especially when the Poms visit the land of their Antipodean brothers.
Probably, the Aussies can’t afford to lose this series, against an Indian team that looks a tad vulnerable and heading towards transition. For the visitors to pull off another upset, Virat Kohli will have to roll back the years.
Kohli versus Cummins, Jasprit Bumrah versus Steve Smith – roll on the West Test.
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🚨 Bharat Arun Exclusive
“Jasprit Bumrah and the bowling unit just need to stick to their strengths,” says Bharat Arun on the potential of Indian bowlers ahead of the series Down Under.
On Harshit Rana: “He is confident in his own abilities.”
Arun also reflects on the… pic.twitter.com/wI55qTU4YC
— RevSportz Global (@RevSportzGlobal) November 21, 2024
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