India vs Australia, Cricket World Cup: Great big role reversal! Aussies look up to Indian cricketers as role models

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If you asked Australia's giant Mathew Hayden about India's Harbhajan Singh in 2008, he would have said that our own Bhajji is "obnoxious weed". This was, of course, the pre-IPL days.

From the time IPL made its debut, Aussies have just stopped 'sledging' or saying anything obnoxious stuff about the Indians. Why so? Even the Aussies love laughing all the way to the bank when they are auctioned at the IPL.

That little combativeness that existed after IPL's entry into cricket all ended after a superstar like Virat Kohli riled by an abusive group of spectators in Australia, showed his middle finger at his hustled fans during a Test match against Australia in Sydney.

Thereafter, some banter happened between Australian captain Tim Paine and India's Rishabh Pant way back in 2018, but thereafter, all the off-field rivalry is just restricted to the battle between the bat and ball.

Yes, you heard that right, there is no Steve Waugh waiting for Sourav Ganguly coming out late for the toss or Harbhajan getting involved the 'Monkey Gate' is only a thing of the past.

Thanks to India's financial might and talent, the Aussies have lost the Test series to India in their own backyard in the 2018 and 2020-21 series. The India team is beating them regularly in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy but couldn't transform their impressive winning strike rate in the World Test Championship final at Oval, wherein India lost by 209 runs.

So, India and Australia are the only rivals on the field. Of it, the players are best of friends. There was a time when an Indian school team or an Indian player going to Australia for training was a big thing.

Or a Dennis Lillee coming and picking an India bowler for the MRF Pace Foundation and in turn, giving him enough validation to play for the country. Now the roles have reversed. The Aussies now look up to the likes of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma for validation.

India's domination in the world is so strong in terms of talent, that the whole cricket world is looking up to our cricketers. No kid wants to become a Ricky Ponting now. The kids in India and Australia look up to Virat Kohli and not Steve Smith or David Warner. That is the revolutionary story behind the India-Australia rivalry in the 22nd century!