Chronicling the biggest rivalry in cricket today

Gideon Haigh, one of the game's sharpest writers, has published a new collection of essays on the storied history of India vs Australia

- Aditya Mani Jha

line cricket fans and writers love to quote is Trinidadian historian and Marxist scholar C.L.R. James' "What do they know of cricket, who only cricket know?" James meant that in order to properly appreciate the game of cricket, one has to consider the historical and sociopolitical conditions under which the game is played. No contemporary writer proves this dictum more often or more thoroughly than the 59-year-old Australian Gideon Haigh, author of some of the finest cricket books of the 21st century, including The Big Ship: Warwick Armstrong and the Making of Modern Cricket (2001), Mystery Spinner: The Life and Death of an Extraordinary Cricketer (2002), On Warne (2012) and Sultan: A Memoir (2022, co-written with Wasim Akram). A prolific writer who began his career as a business journalist in the 1980s, Haigh's body of work is diverse—several true crime books, a history of the workplace, an account of the legalization of abortion in Australia.

Westland has recently published his latest book, Indian Summers: Australia Versus India, a collection of essays covering what has grown to be arguably the foremost rivalry in contemporary cricket. These essays cover nearly a century of Indo-Australian cricketing encounters, starting with Frank Tarrant's touring party of 1935-36 and going all the way till the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy played in Australia. All the big, familiar moments for Indian fans—the 2001 Kolkata Test, the 2003 and 2023 ODI World Cup Finals, the 2024 T20 World Cup game—are covered here.