The India - Australia Contest

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.

The reasons for the high quality of cricket are obvious. The most potent forces in Test Cricket are not great individual champions, but unrelenting quality in at least one area of a team. Look at the 2005 Ashes winning English side. One could argue that England won the Ashes for two main reasons - first, that Glenn McGrath was indisposed for part of the series, and second, that England found a hostile, accurate fast bowling combination. The series was decided by the break down in Australia's bowling line up on the one hand, and the peaking of the English bowling line up on the other. The former allowed the England batsmen the breathing room to rack up enough runs (the class of Michael Vaughan and Kevin Pietersen helped), while the latter put enormous pressure on the Australian batting line up. As is the case more often than not, in a battle between a strong bowling attack and a strong batting line up, the bowling attack wins.

India have been able to subject Australia to something that other teams could not do - sustained quality of batting on the truer Australian wickets. I have long felt that Indias batsmen do better on truer, faster wickets with better bounce than they do on the slow dust bowls in the sub-continent, especially against good bowling attacks. The Indian middle order has consistently put up competitive totals and matched the Australian runs (scored against the weaker Indian attack). The story of India's Test Match play against Australia has been for India's batsmen to keep India in the game for as long as possible, until a situation arises where Australia find themselves under some pressure, and occasionally give in to that pressure (Adelaide, Perth, Chennai 2001 are all examples of this).

The one underrated character in the India-Australia story, dominated as it is by VVS Laxman, Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar, is Virender Sehwag. Sehwag is the single most prolific opening batsman against Australia in Test Cricket in the last 9 years (since Waugh became captain), with 1132 runs at 53.30. Only 1 other opening batsmen averaged more than 50 against Australia as opener, and that is Michael Vaughan. The next best record is held by Herschelle Gibbs who averaged 37, Gary Kirsten who averaged 36, Atapattu who averaged 35 and Marcus Trecothick who averaged 34. Every other opening batsman who has played at least 8 innings against Australia averages 32 or less. Sehwag gives India a phenomenal advantage and this is just another reason why he is in my view one of the great Indian batsmen of all time.

The other obvious reason why India are competitive is spin bowling. Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh are number 1 and 2 respectively on the list of wicket takers against Australia since Steve Waugh became captain, with 76 and 62 wickets each. The Australians have contributed to this, mainly because of their tendency to go hard at the ball as classic hard wicket players are prone to do. It is not surprising that the top four wicket takers against them in the last 10 years are all spinners - Murali and Vettori make up the top four. The rare Australian genius who is able to adapt to playing spin bowling, like Damien Martyn remains the exception. Mathew Hayden has worked out his own method using the sweepshot to great effect. Make no mistake about it, the Australians are not bad players of spin bowling, its just that they don't play it as well as they play pace.

This is probably the last series when these titans will face each other, and even though they are all clearly older and slightly slower than they were in their prime, i am looking forward to a serious, cerebral contest of wits, especially when India bowl, and Australia bat. This in a sense is the big shift in this series. Typically, the great cricketing contests in India - Australia series came when India batted, and Australia bowled. This time around, Ishant Sharma and Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh bowling at Ricky Ponting and Matthew Hayden will be what i am watching for. I do expect the odd great contest when Brett Lee is bowling, late in the evening at Tendulkar or Dravid, or with Stuart Clark trying to starve Sehwag with his awesome accuracy.

For India v Australia to become a true rivalry, both nations will have to find reasons beyond cricket which would make winning an India v Australia contest meaningful. We almost had that in Australia last season, and those memories are best left to fade away into history.

As far as im concerned, give me Brazil v Holland over England v Argentina any day.