Intoxicated by the atmosphere created by Indian fans during last summer’s Adelaide Test, I suggested the gauntlet had been thrown down and that the Ashes’ singular place in our sporting history may be under threat. In Melbourne, on that heady fifth day when 74,362 people, not one of whom had a ticket 24 hours before, streamed through the turnstiles and flooded into the stands, I doubled down. There was an electricity in the air that quickened the heart and raised goose flesh on the skin.
Mel McLaughlin and I, standing shoulder to shoulder on the boundary, an arm’s length from the primarily Indian fan group, could not hear each other speak as we did that final cross while Nathan Lyon and Scott Boland made their way to the middle. You’ve The game and the series were poised one-all, the excitement of Sam Konstas’s audacity on Boxing Day still resonant, the noise from the visiting fans relentless. A little later, I walked around to the deck of the Ponsford Stand to soak it all in without distraction.
That was some summer, but who was I fooling?
The Border-Gavaskar has become an enormous series, fuelled by the growth of a passionate Indian-born section of the Australian population, but these Ashes already promise to be bigger. At the heart of this is a rivalry with nearly 150 years of shared enmity; these petty grievances run deep because they’re familial among the traditional – apparently pale, male and stale – Australian cricket fan.
I popped down to have a look at the anti-immigration march in Sydney a few weeks back and was amused to see that a smattering of the concerned chose Cricket Australia shirts and caps as a way to signal their proprietorial rights. Jacinta Price might quibble and bleat, but Australian cricket has grown another leg thanks to the influx of people from the subcontinent. How else to explain the SCG putting up the SOLD OUT sign two months out from the Australia v India ODI at the venue?
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