‘Without a clear vision for cricket, people are pursuing narrow, short-term interests’

Gideon Haigh, the English-born Australian journalist, is often called the 'Bradman of cricket writing'. He, though, famously criticised the 'deification' of Donald Bradman, the legendary Australian cricketer. Known for his no-nonsense, candid style, Gideon has decades of match-reporting experience and over 50 books in his kitty. His latest, Indian Summers (Westland, 2025), is a curated anthology of his best essays on the Indo-Australian rivalry, where he takes the readers through decades of spicy cricket history from Bradman and Hazare to Kohli and Cummins. While there are many stand-out essays, particularly mention-worthy are his articles on the astounding innings Dean Jones played in the tied Chennai Test of 1986, To Siraj With Love about the Sydney Test of 2021, and Gimme Head on the World Test Championship Final, 2023. Excerpts

Is the Indo-Australian rivalry cricket’s most commercially viable and influential contest today?

Australia and India are two countries whose relations are unclouded by past wars, ethnic tensions, and colonial ties; there is an irreducible racial difference that occasionally rears its head, but it has remained within bounds. That leaves us to concentrate on the cricket — a rare luxury in these troubled times. In the last quarter century, too, Australia and India have fielded teams containing many greats, played cricket of high quality, and enjoyed roughly equivalent moments of success to hearten their fans, setting a standard of accomplishment to aspire to.

You’ve chronicled cricket for decades. Has the modern game become harder or easier to love?

The modern game is too unequal, too chaotic and too political. But it’s as loved as ever, if not more. My love for it is greatly enhanced by playing for my club. Also, by having a bat in every room of my house!

Has the power balance tilt to India changed cricket?

The power balance in cricket has tilted to money; it just happens that India is where most of the money is. And the more money, the less virtue.

You do not mince words in the piece ‘Cricket’s Modi Question’ in your book. You talk about ‘cricket’s number one nepo baby’ and go on to elaborate on the game and government messaging. Have your views changed over the past two years?

The idea that Jay Shah is the person best equipped to run the ICC is ludicrous. He evinces no talent, no vision, no skills, a complete lack of self-awareness, and his chief qualification is who his father is. That the world is expected to pretend otherwise is a travesty. That doesn’t reflect a distrust of India, by the way. I suspect that the ablest cricket people in the world are to be found in India. But the Jay Shah ascendancy is a hollow sham.

From apartheid-era boycotts to today, cricket has always been a political animal, hasn’t it?

That’s true. Can the sport really be separated from political and even ideological narratives? Well, no, and you wouldn’t completely want to either.

Looking back at moments like the Monkeygate scandal or the Gabba of 2021, or even the Kohli-Konstas row at BGT 2024, do you feel the India-Australia rivalry has at times revealed deeper cultural/racial tensions?

Monkeygate sure. But Gabba 2021 was great, and the Kohli-Konstas row was a foolish misstep by a great player wrestling with his diminishing powers. We needn’t go looking for ‘cultural/racial tensions’ when they don’t really exist.

Is cricket today evolving as a game or fragmenting under the weight of competing formats, choc-a-bloc calendars and commercial pressures?

It’s doing both. In the words of British historian C Northcote Parkinson: ‘Growth brings complexity, and complexity decay.’

When it comes to the shorter forms of the game, do you think we’re nearing a saturation point?

It’s almost inconceivable that a lover of cricket can follow all the cricket going on in the world today. In the absence of any particular overarching vision for cricket, people are pursuing narrow, sectional and short-term interests. But this is not uniform. In women’s cricket and the cricket of associate members of the ICC, we are a long way from any saturation point. They could do with more competition, more opportunity.

Franchise cricket is blurring national identities. Do you see a future where national pride takes a backseat to team loyalty?

By ‘team loyalty’, what I think you mean is catering to corporate
interests. And I don’t think corporate interests and cricket interests can ever be completely aligned.

If you had to choose one match—just one—that best captures the poetry and drama of cricket, what would it be, and why?

One of my favourite Tests would be Melbourne 2020. India had been routed in Adelaide. Their captain had gone home. We were in the middle of the pandemic in the world’s most locked-down city. But the visitors regrouped under Ajinkya Rahane — a great favourite of mine — and Australia were just a couple of per cent below their best. The match isn’t as well remembered as it should be. But it was a cricketer’s Test. If you’ve ever been in a game where you started behind, fought, rallied and won, you know how great that feels.

Is there a cricketer, past or present, whose autobiography you wish you could have ghostwritten?

Chris Tavare. 

(Gideon, in an article in the Wisden Asia Cricket magazine in 2003, admitted that Tavare, a British cricketer who played 30-odd tests for England between 1980-84 and known mostly for his stonewalling, was an “unconventional” choice for a favourite cricketer.)

What’s your cricketing guilty pleasure?

That’s a good question. Probably bats. I still have every one I’ve ever used. After all, how can you get rid of a bat?!

If you were to invite five cricketers from any era to a dinner party, who would you invite and why?

Oh, I would invite the members of my 2015 premiership team, so we could tell each other how good we were/are!