Review of Indian Summers by Gideon Haigh - The Hindu

Cricketing duels between Australia and England have the allure of a nearly 150-year history. In the case of India versus Pakistan, the antipathy stems from a bloody Partition that stirred sentiments of anger and distrust, something which jingoistic fans on both sides of the border continue to play up during these encounters. As eagerly anticipated as these battles tend to be, they have arguably flattered to deceive recently. Sample this: Australia has won 13 and drawn two of its last 15 Tests against England at home; the subcontinental neighbours haven’t engaged in a bilateral series since 2012-13, and their meetings in ICC events have been largely one-sided.

If there’s a rivalry then that has set hearts racing consistently in the 21st century, it is the one involving India and Australia. Since the turn of the millennium, it has had everything: from the miracle of Eden 2001 to the mud-slinging of Sydney 2008; from the greatness of Sachin Tendulkar to the genius of Shane Warne; from the aesthetics and athleticism of Virat Kohli to the appetite and aptitude of Steve Smith. In this period, India has won 22 while Australia has triumphed in 21 of 56 Tests.

Ultimate face-off

To embellish this great matchup, it is only fitting that Gideon Haigh has come up with a 341-page tome, Indian Summers: Australia versus India — Cricket’s Battle of the Titans. Haigh is among the world’s foremost cricket writers with a host of highly-acclaimed books to his name, and though his latest work is merely a collage of his reports, essays and columns over the years and focuses mainly on the Test battles — the 2023 ODI World Cup final and 2024 T20 World Cup clash are exceptions — the Australian’s discerning eye, elegant prose and intrepid insights make this another engrossing read.

Contests between India and Australia are now commonplace, but it wasn’t always thus. As Haigh notes at the beginning: “The cricket rivalry of Australia and India was a long time maturing to its present intensity. In the twentieth century, the teams spread fifty-seven Tests over fifty-four years.”

While independent India’s first-ever cricket tour was to the land of Sir Don Bradman in 1947-48, Australia’s early sojourns to the subcontinent were marked by ignorance and indifference. They found the food indigestible, the heat insufferable and the hostile crowds intolerable.

Attitudes gradually evolved and exchanges between the two teams grew. In Madras’ enervating humidity in 1986, they famously produced the second tied Test in the game’s long history, a list devoid of additions even 39 years later. Haigh’s flair for words paints a vivid picture of the proceedings through the five days.

The inflection point in the face-off was the Eden Gardens Test in 2001, when V.V.S. Laxman and Rahul Dravid turned miracle-makers and enabled India to script a comeback for the ages against Steve Waugh’s men. In the prelude to the chapter, Haigh remarks: “It marked the beginning of the notion that India, with its star-studded batting line-up of Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman and Sehwag, was a potential match for Australia in particular and everyone in general.”

The book also contains lovely essays on some of Haigh’s favourite Indian cricketers: Bishan Singh Bedi, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, Sunil Gavaskar, Gundappa Viswanath, Kapil Dev, Mohinder Amarnath, Dilip Doshi, Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Kohli.

If there’s a glaring omission in the book, it is that there is no chapter dedicated to the magnetic individual battles between Tendulkar and Warne. But there’s much else to savour, just as you would expect from a first-rate author on a fascinating subject.

Indian Summers

Gideon Haigh

Westland Books

₹599

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