Since Christmas there have been three stories that have dominated my information environment. The first is the annual Boxing Day cricket test match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) – spanning five days. The second is a new series by the Melbourne broadsheet The Age on Melbourne’s booming western suburbs. And the third is the social media war between tech bros and MAGA ultras over the United States’s HB-1 visa. On the surface these may seem like entirely distinct issues, but on closer inspection there are linkages here that are critical for Australia’s future.
Every year on December 26 a cricket test match – the longest form of the game – is played between Australia and another country. This year, India is touring Australia for a five-match series around the country. Given the two countries are currently the highest ranked teams in the world, these matches elicit serious attention – and serious attendance, with a record broken for largest crowd for a test match in Australia with 373,691 people attending across the game’s five days.
A significant factor feeding this crowd size is the recent wave of Indian migration to Australia. With now over a million people citing Indian ancestry in the country, Indian Australians have rapidly become one of the largest diasporas in Australia. This migration has settled predominantly in Melbourne’s western suburbs.
To Melbourne’s west lies an seemingly endless flat plain. Long overlooked as a desirable area to live, this area is now rapidly being converted into housing estates. While housing remains astronomically priced in Australian cities, here the Australian Dream of a big house and large backyard is still relatively affordable. It’s an opportunity that Indian migrants have embraced. The area west of Melbourne is the fastest growing region in the country.
Yet, as The Age’s new series highlights, these new estates come with the cost of a lack of public services. Public transport is sparse, and other infrastructure like schools and medical centers cannot be built and organized to keep pace with the population growth. Access to jobs and activity centers is difficult and time-consuming. This creates a disconnect between these new suburbs and the city itself, a connection that is vital for the success of new migrant communities.
Migrant success – and particularly the competition for high-skilled migrants – is currently tearing apart the coalition that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump created by bringing tech entrepreneurs in under the MAGA umbrella. Not overlooking the naked political cynicism of many of these high profile entrepreneurs, at face value they see access to global talent as intrinsic to the success of their business, and by extension national power. Trump’s more traditional base sees the national interest in far narrower terms, with a deep suspicion of the global perspectives of these businessmen.
How this plays out when Trump takes office is critical for what talent – and talent from India – may be available to Australia should doors in the United States start to close. Australia is unable to compete with the sheer magnetism of the U.S., and the world-leading, innovative companies that it houses and fosters. But Australia can compete in quality of life and an emerging innovation ecosystem that can be attractive to aspirational and ambitious migrants potentially shut out of the U.S.
But both lifestyle and innovation rely on good urban planning.
What does this have to do with cricket? Well, cricket is how Australia projects power into India. What Australia lacks in conventional power can be made up, in part, with the psychological power of sporting prowess. The strength of the Australian cricket team keeps Australia in the minds of cricket-mad Indians. This is essential for not only economic and security links, but for attracting skills from India in the global competition for talent.
It is often derided in Australia that cricket is a superficial link between Australia and India and that more substantial bonds between the two countries need to be found. Yet to those who love the game it is far from superficial. It is a powerful social force and something people feel deep within their souls. Cricket is the door opener between Australia and India, and for new migrants from India to Australia.
This is of critical importance as India’s own global power accelerates. Cricket has been a major factor in why Australia has found it far easier to build greater cooperation with India than with the geographically closer Indonesia. As Indonesia’s power grows there’s very little to keep Indonesians thinking about Australia, whereas Australia’s presence is almost constant on Indian television sets and in its newspapers.
But this also relies on Australia seeing the whole chessboard – or taking the five-day view, in cricket parlance. That includes how it responds to global political shifts like those in the U.S. all the way down to how it facilitates and takes advantage of population growth through good urban planning. Every ball matters.
