ABSTRACT
Cricket has become central to Indo-Australian relations in recent years. Not only in diplomatic rhetoric, but in the broader imaginations of each the other too, cricket has provided the template upon which to base mutual understanding. The two countries have often referred to and used cricket as both a metaphor and an idiom by which to mutually relate to each other.
However the approaches to cricket as social practice are distinct in each of the countries and this has sometimes led ironically to a lack of comprehension. This has particularly been brought to light in the wake of recent scandals, which have often precipitated a crisis in the insistent refrain of the ‘shared love of cricket’.
The irony of the situation lies in the belief that since cricket started out from the same source in England before travelling to either country it would provide a handy and common theme to base contemporary relationships on. What such an idea ignores is that cricket was crucially transformed in each of its adopted homes and came to signify very distinct social praxes in each of these. Moreover these distinct social praxes often do not readily reconcile with each other making the insistence of a shared common cricketing culture problematic.
