Australia has replaced Pakistan as India’s fiercest rival, a fact established and discussed previously. But in the context of world cricket, any encounter between India and Australia raises the question – is the Indo-Australian series bigger than the most traditional of encounters, the Ashes?
Australia’s tryst with India has been legendary in itself. Over the last decade, the intensity of the matches have risen to feverish pitch as Australia have maintained their dominance over the other Test playing nations but often found their most humiliating moments against the equally eager Indians.

(Also read: Australia, the new ‘Pakistan’ for India )

Australia, being the top ranked team in world cricket in Tests, have also been the team to beat. India, with a line up that should have ruled the roost, have been rarely found wanting when it comes to playing Australia. That is what has made this contest so close and so tight fistedly fought on practically even single occasion irrespective of which team came out on top. Australia have rarely been challenged as much in the last fifteen years and that they have found at least one worthy opponent has whet even their appetite to produce some of their most aggressive cricket after being humbled.

Everyone prefers an easier opponent whom they believe they can beat. But when it happens one too often, the appetite for the battle dies down even for the victors. So, when a team with spark, talent to boot and persistence that the Indians have uncharacteristically shown against the Australia challenges the Goliath of the game, there is bound to be a fair amount of interest when the challenger happens to be David.

Of course, it has also meant that there have been a few unsavoury incidents such as the Andrew Symonds-Harbhajan Singh that virtually got out of hand as well as the incident involving Michael Slater and Rahul Dravid in the early days of the now adrenaline pumping rivalry. It is a testimony to the level of intensity at which these games are played that the felicitations become just as pompous. Compare the celebrations of the Indian team after the inaugural world Twenty20 with the celebrations after India won the Commonwealth Bank Series (CB) against Australia earlier this year. The footage is not much different, with fans asking – will the team be felicitated like this after every victory? But that is the level at which this rivalry is being viewed that the sweet victory becomes an ostentatious occasion.

The Indo-Australian contests have made for some very scintillating, exciting moments so much so that practically all other contests in modern day cricket pale before them. This then brings cricket audiences to the question – Is the Indo-Australian tie bigger than the Ashes?
For starters, Australia have relished every opportunity against their traditional rivals, England. But even for such an emotional series with a rich history, England’s despondency in the standards of cricket have often meant, over the last couple of decades, that England have hardly stood a realistic chance to regain the Ashes and thereby, made this a one sided affair. While Australia gained momentum and strength of line up and of bench since the last eighties, England has been on the steady decline and despite a spurt every once in a blue moon, have not really enriched the traditional contest.

The only time England realistically believed in themselves that they stood a real chance even as Australia, and a very vocal Glen McGrath, dismissed it as wishful thinking on England’s part, was also the time when England put it across Australia. In 2005, Michael Vaughan had a team going for him and the strategy was due for dividends. Beating the Australian team was not a fluke even though it was the sole Ashes series victory for England in eighteen years. England had the team to beat the leading Test team in the world and they did just that.

When England beat South Africa more recently in the final dead rubber of the Test, England’s newly appointed captain, Kevin Pietersen, expressed his Ashes hopes. But it was not wishful thinking either. Pietersen knew what clicked for England in 2005 and rather than stamp his eccentricities on the game, he is doing it the way Vaughan did, picking his best team and backing them to deliver. When Pietersen said England could beat Australia in the Ashes, he also added that provided the team played the way it did against South Africa at the Oval.
Australia are only too aware of England’s growing prowess albeit still in its infancy. Australia would like to tell the world that the Ashes is the bigger one, more of the seniors will, but perhaps the younger members in the side will begin to show the shift in thinking. So, perhaps until the Ashes revival happens, India and Australia have one more opportunity to face each other and add another glorious chapter to their insatiable challenges that have marked the last decade in international cricket.326687