Indian Summers: Australia versus India - Cricket's Battle of the Titans

by Gideon Haigh

The master cricket writer on the battle between two cricket Australia and India.

FEATURES A PREVIEW TO THE 2024-25 BORDER-GAVASKAR TROPHY

'This rivalry has got bigger and bigger. It's not just Australia and India. The entire cricketing world is watching.' – Ravi Shastri

Cricket superpowers Australia and India share a unique rivalry that has produced some of the greatest – and most heated – battles the game has seen. In Indian Summers bestselling author and journalist Gideon Haigh has captured a century of fierce competition between the two nations, from Bradman versus Hazare through to Warne versus Tendulkar to Cummins versus Kohli, from 1986's unforgettable tied Test in Chennai to 2021's Indian coup in Brisbane. He relives the titanic struggles of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, the World Test Championship, the ODI World Cup and the T20 World Cup, and explores the near-mystical bond of two countries divided by a common game.


From over three decades of covering cricket's greatest matches, Gideon Haigh has brought together a collection from this most glorious cricketing contest and its most infamous moments, from colonial times to the present day.


'As a cricket writer Gideon Haigh has few peers, past or present ... a class act.' – Sydney Morning Herald

'The Bradman of cricket writing' – Sunday Telegraph

'The finest cricket writer alive' – The Australian

'Australia's finest writer on cricket' – The Times

'The world's greatest living cricket writer' – The Guardian

Genres: Nonfiction

353 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 29, 2024

About the author

Gideon Clifford Jeffrey Davidson Haigh (born 29 December 1965) is an English-born Australian journalist, who writes about sport (especially cricket) and business. He was born in London, raised in Geelong, and now lives in Melbourne.

Haigh began his career as a journalist, writing on business for The Age newspaper from 1984 to 1992 and for The Australian from 1993 to 1995. He has since contributed to over 70 newspapers and magazines,[2] both on business topics as well as on sport, mostly cricket. He wrote regularly for The Guardian during the 2006-07 Ashes series and has featured also in The Times and the Financial Times.

Haigh has authored 19 books and edited seven more. Of those on a cricketing theme, his historical works includes The Cricket War and Summer Game, his biographies The Big Ship (of Warwick Armstrong) and Mystery Spinner (of Jack Iverson), the latter pronounced The Cricket Society's "Book of the Year", short-listed for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year and dubbed "a classic" by The Sunday Times;[3] anthologies of his writings Ashes 2005 and Game for Anything, as well as Many a Slip, the humorous diary of a club cricket season, and The Vincibles, his story of the South Yarra Cricket Club, of which he is life member and perennate vice-president and for whose newsletter he has written about cricket the longest. He has also published several books on business-related topics, such as The Battle for BHP, Asbestos House (which dilates the James Hardie asbestos controversy) and Bad Company, an examination of the CEO phenomenon. He mostly publishes with Aurum Press.

Haigh was appointed editor of the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack Australia for 1999–2000 and 2000–01. Since March 2006, he has been a regular panellist on the ABC television sports panel show Offsiders. He was also a regular co-host on The Conversation Hour with Jon Faine on 774 ABC Melbourne until near the end of 2006.

Haigh has been known to be critical of what he regards as the deification of Sir Donald Bradman and "the cynical exploitation of his name by the mediocre and the greedy".[4] He did so in a September 1998 article in Wisden Cricket Monthly, entitled "Sir Donald Brandname". Haigh has been critical of Bradman's biographer Roland Perry, writing in The Australian that Perry's biography was guilty of "glossing over or ignoring anything to Bradman's discredit".[4]

Haigh won the John Curtin Prize for Journalism in the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards in 2006[5] for his essay "Information Idol: How Google is making us stupid",[6] which was published in The Monthly magazine. He asserted that the quality of discourse could suffer as a source of information's worth is judged by Google according to its previous degree of exposure to the status quo. He believes the pool of information available to those using Google as their sole avenue of inquiry is inevitably limited and possibly compromised due to covert commercial influences.

He blogged on the 2009 Ashes series for The Wisden Cricketer.[7]

On 24 October 2012 he addressed the tenth Bradman Oration in Melbourne.

Reviews

[Douglas Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gideon Haigh is the finest cricket writer in this country and he has delivered another great book. To devote a full piece on what is becoming an intense and delightful rivalry is overdue and timely. Haigh is like a well flighted off-spinner, teasing you with the simplicity of language and then surprising you with accuracy of the word or bamboozling you as you are surprised at the effectiveness of a turn of phrase that makes you think beyond what you may have seen - and appreciate the game and the actors that make it such a theatre.

[Peter Langston · Rating 4 out of 5]

It a good thing to have been so good at your trade that you can issue a “best of” along a theme in time for Christmas. This collection of previously published pieces is at its best in the profiles, all of them Indian players. My particular favourites were those about Kohli, Gavaskar, Tendulkar and Bedi. Haigh goes behind the skills and performances to examine the players as people and their role in bringing their culture to the world through their game. My early admiration for Bishan Bedi was greatly enhanced and despite all who have followed, he remain my favourite. The early series are given background and insight … a good thing for cricket devotees whose knowledge of Tests which pre-date the Border/Gavaskar. Most know little of cricket between the modern powerhouses before Simpson’s return during World Series Cricket and what became the Them v Us summer of 78-79. Written in the at times gloriously rich prose for which Haigh is renowned, it’s a good read … unless you read the words in their originally published forms.

[Michael Reilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Indian Summers is a neat collection full of informed observations and clever questioning of everything on and beyond the pitch; Haigh’s words flow with easy style and ample wit, adding context and clarification to interesting aspects of the game and its players. This book’s short articles track the contests between Australia and India through many decades, in which time the two teams have become almost identical in capability and on-field attitude. It may not feature a cohesive narrative, but Indian Summers is always informative and entertaining, and well worth a read if you enjoy the game of cricket.

[Troy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of articles by Gideon over recent period of India v Australia. As well as some informative pieces on the early days of India playing Australia.

Gideon has a fantastic turn of phrase and is a passionate follower of the games who treats his readers as equals and gives us a cracking metaphor every now and then.

Thoroughly enjoyable. And following another classic struggle in the Australian summer, plenty more to come.

4 stars.

[David Poole · Rating 1 out of 5]

A lazy offering, seemingly put together quickly from past columns in time for the 2024-2025 Indian tour of Australia. Quite a few columns add little to what has been said or have become very outdated or irrelevant given the passage of time.