Yet, competitive cricket is not a pre-requisite for a rivalry. The Ashes and the India-Pakistan contest are rivalries purely because supporters on either side of each of those contests want success so badly that they tend to completely disregard cricketing facts. Thus, India v Pakistan was a rivalry in the late 1980's and early 1990's, at a time when Pakistan clearly had the better team, just as the Ashes rivalry continued unabated through out the 1990's - a decade of absolute Australian dominance. A rivalry is one where an entire team recieves an OBE for winning back the Ashes. What India and Australia have, is similar to what Pakistan and West Indies had in the late 1980's - Pakistan were the only team in the world which could compete with the West Indies then.
Rivalries have little to do with on-field events, they relate to stories about contests and contests beyond the cricket field. India and Australia have no such shared history. Indeed, between 1945 and 2000, Australia toured India 7 times, including just three full tours in the last 30 years of the 20th century. The BCCI's increasing clout and the resulting parity in the cricket calender has meant that India and Australia now play each other as frequently, if not as much as England play Australia. But India v Australia is still more like Brazil v Holland, than it is like England v Argentina. A contest that is likely to produce exceptionally high quality cricket, without any of the attendant themes of a true rivalry.
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