Major ‘issues’ in Australian cricket

The writer’s collection of ABC Cricket Books featuring India over the years. Pic/Satej Shinde

If Wisden is widely accepted as the Bible of cricket, die-hard cricket fans in Australia and elsewhere treat the ABC Cricket Book - published by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation season after season - as a fine companion while indulging in their sporting adoration.

First published in 1934, the latest one for the 2024-25 season features Pat Cummins and Rohit Sharma on the cover, above the words: SHOWDOWN - Australia and India to settle score across 5 epic Tests. Indian cricket followers too used to lap up tour brochures but that has become a thing of the past.

The 1947-48 edition had a glowing tribute paid to Indian cricket by SP Foenander, before Lala Amarnath's men began their five-Test series Down Under: "A country that can produce a Ranji, a Duleep, a CK Nayudu, a Pataudi [Sr], and a VM Merchant, with its vast population, many of them as crazy about the game as the most enthusiastic in England and Australia, is bound sooner or later to challenge the supremacy of the older cricket nations." How prophetic. That said, India didn't win a Test series in Australia till 2018-19, although there were Test wins in Melbourne and Sydney in 1977-78, at Melbourne in 1980-81, at Adelaide in 2003-04 and the 2007-08 Perth win. The closest India came to winning the silverware (called the Border-Gavaskar Trophy since 1996) before the 2018-19 triumph was in 1977-78 and 2003-04. Both teams arrived in Adelaide in 1978 with two wins apiece and Australia, led by Bob Simpson, clinched an exciting victory. While Bedi and BS Chandrasekhar were the bowling stars, Sunil Gavaskar scored 450 runs embellished with three centuries in the first three Tests at Brisbane, Perth and Melbourne. His 1977-78 exploits were highlighted in his profile for the 1980-81 edition of the ABC Cricket Book: "Gavaskar's approach to the game is built on the pillars of technical competence and a shrewd cricketing brain. Capable of a pleasing array of strokes, remarkable for their technical excellence, his greatness is inherent in his capacity to mould his innings to the requirements of the situation."

Test cricket's top century scorer from 1983 to 2005, did not score a century on that 1-1 tour, but there were two tons on the next - the 1985-85 battle which ended 0-0.

That summer witnessed the presence of Kapil Dev and Richard Hadlee and the anticipation of watching two champions in the one-day triangular series was understandable.

"Cold statistics do not always give the measure of a man. In the case of Hadlee and Kapil Dev, however, the figures alone are remarkably eloquent. Kapil Dev has played 68 Tests for India, reaping 2,788 runs and 258 wickets. Hadlee has played 57 Tests for 2,088 runs and 266 wickets," wrote Norman Tasker in the 1985-86 ABC Book.

The 1991-92 tour of Australia was India's first since Gavaskar bid goodbye to cricket and the first one for Sachin Tendulkar. Harsha Bhogle wrote a piece on India's tour prospects and the player profiles. While Bhogle waxed eloquent on Mohammed Azharuddin, he wrote that Tendulkar has, "a most charming freshness, has remarkable maturity and mental strength. A naturally aggressive player, with massive forearms, Tendulkar has the ability to turn a match around in no time." When it came to stating the probable "true inheritor of the Gavaskar legacy," Bhogle named Sanjay Manjrekar.

Australia were the out and out world champions of cricket by the time India visited them again. In my copy, bought from a convenience store in Brisbane where the 1999-2000 triangular series kicked off, cricket writer and historian Gulu Ezekiel quoted Bishan Singh Bedi saying that Tendulkar was "the greatest living Indian."

India didn't compete well with Australia on that 1999-2000 tour but the next one in 2003-04 had even Australian cricket fans raving about Sourav Ganguly's team even though the preview writers didn't seem too optimistic.

For the 2007-08 guide, they asked me to write a piece on Sachin Tendulkar, on what could be his last tour to Australia. "This summer, Australia's cricket-loving public has a chance to bid farewell to another heavy bat-wielding great when Sachin Tendulkar plays his last Test series Down Under." I was wrong, for Tendulkar was also on the 2011-12 tour. Before the Mumbai master, no Indian player had undertaken five Test trips to Australia. Kohli has just joined Tendulkar for Test tour No. 5.

And while we can see that the Aussie newspapers have gone to town over the Indian batting great, I learn that the 2024-25 Season Guide has a one-pager on Kohli in which writer Callum Hill has called him, "the Picasso of getting underneath his opposite number's skin."

Jim Maxwell, 74, has been the enduring tour guide's editor since 1988. That was before Tendulkar put on an India cap, before Shane Warne bowled his first ball in Test cricket, before Mark Waugh's sparkling 1990-91 debut, before the present India captain Rohit Sharma turned one and before Pat Cummins was born.

In a way, the ABC Season Guide is one for all seasons.

mid-day's group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance. He tweets @ClaytonMurzello
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