India-Australia Relations (friends or foe)

Whenever we talk about rivalry in cricket we talk about Indo-Pak rivalry or the Ashes (ENG vs AUS) but India-Australia rivalry is unique in its own way. There has been controversies between the Indians and Aussies whenever they face-off in a world-cup or bilateral series and the intensity level is always high.

The Episode of Monkey Gate

The incident took place during the Sydney Test in 2008, in which Harbhajan was accused of calling Symonds a ‘monkey’. Things became very worse when Australia wanted to boycott that series. Ponting and his men were very grilled during that tour after the episode of monkey gate. A decade after the incident, Symonds stated that he had closed the case three years later.

Both of them ended the controversy by playing for Mumbai in the Indian Premier League. Harbhajan, who had denied such remarks at the time, was imposed a three-match suspension. India however opposed it, following which the ban was lifted. At that time the cricketing relationship between India and Australia reached its worst phase.

DRS is Decision Review System not Dressing Room Review

It all happened in the Australia tour of India 2017,the second test when Steve Smith and his men were given a target of 188. Umesh Yadav bowled a full length hitting the pads of Steve Smith and looked plump. Umpire Nigel Llong straight away gave it out. Steve Smith walked down towards non-striker Peter Handscomb and then looked at the dressing room for assistance to ensure whether he had to take a referral or not.

According to ICC Code of Conduct – a batsman can consult only the non-striker to go for referral and not any other external sources. Virat Kohli caught Smith breaking the code of conduct and immediately informed the umpire. The umpire asked the batsman to leave. Later Smith admitted that he asked the dressing room for help which was wrong.

Virat couldn’t play the series decider due to his shoulder injury. But India convincingly won the series 2-1 under the captaincy of stand-in skipper Ajinkya Rahane thus retaining the Border-Gavaskar trophy.

There were many controversies created by Aussies in that tour. Steve Smith on behalf of his team apologized to the team India and fans for their behaviour in that test series. Virat Kohli said that although the series was won they had lost the friendship amongst Aussies.

Virat Kohli showing the Spirit of game

During the ICC world-cup 2019, in a league stage match between India and Australia, Steve Smith had returned from a ban of sand-paper gate after a period of 12 months. When Steve Smith came out to bat the Indian fans were booing at him. Virat immediately went on to the boundary field and made a gesture to the fans to clap for him instead of booing him. This gesture was appreciated by both Smith and fans of cricket which clearly indicated that the relations of India-Australia was not that intense as we thought. Virat Kohli was awarded the ICC Spirit of game in 2020 for his positive gesture.

Australia play the aggressive style of cricket with pure sledging and dominance. In early 2000’s Australia under the captaincy of Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting were invincible for a decade’s time. When Virat was given the captaincy in 2014, he and his team also adopted the same aggressive style of play. That’s the reason why India has become the number one team in test format for a while now.