Before sport became part of an official bilateral agenda, it was already creating connections between people from India and Australia.
Those connections were not always straightforward. They developed through the British imperial sporting system, against a background of colonial inequality and racial prejudice, before evolving into a relationship shaped increasingly by independent sporting institutions, professional competition, business, education and international cooperation.
Understanding that history matters. It reminds us that sporting relationships are not built in a single tournament or government announcement. They develop over generations, through people who play, coach, organise, teach and create opportunities for others.
For Australia and India, cricket provides one of the clearest historical threads. But the future of the relationship extends well beyond the boundary.
1896–1897: An early cricket connection
One important early figure was K. S. Ranjitsinhji, widely known as Ranji, an Indian prince and exceptional cricketer who represented England in Test cricket.
In July 1896, Ranji made his Test debut against Australia at Old Trafford in England. He scored 62 and 154 not out in the match, becoming the first Indian to play Test cricket. The following year, he toured Australia with the English team.
These were not matches between the modern national teams of India and Australia. India had not yet made its Test debut. Nevertheless, Ranji's appearances against Australian cricketers are an important part of the early history connecting Indian sporting talent with Australian cricket.
His experience also exposed the less admirable side of that relationship. Historical research published by the Australia India Institute describes his criticism of crowd behaviour and the jeering known as “barracking” during the Australian tour.
That history deserves to be acknowledged alongside the sporting achievements. The early connection was formed in a colonial system in which Indian and Australian participants did not enjoy equal standing.
Sport can create encounters across cultures, but those encounters do not automatically produce equality or respect. The history is more meaningful when both the achievements and the barriers are recognised.
Source: Australia India Institute — Cricket: India and Australia in Search of Respect.
1915–1936: Knowledge and cricket move between countries
During the early twentieth century, Australian cricketing expertise became more closely connected with Indian domestic cricket.
One notable figure was Frank Tarrant, an Australian cricketer who spent many years in India. Historical research by the Australia India Institute describes his work with Indian teams, including coaching India's touring sides to England in 1932 and 1936, and his role in organising an unofficial Australian tour of India in 1935–36.
Tarrant's career illustrates an important point: sporting exchange has never been only about the players selected to represent a country. Coaches, organisers and administrators can also influence the development of a sport.
The movement of people and expertise between the countries was taking place before formal national-team cricket between India and Australia began. It was part of a wider sporting world connected through the British Empire, although it should not be confused with a modern bilateral development programme.
This period also reminds us that the history of sport is not simply a list of match results. It includes the people who established competitions, developed facilities, shared techniques and helped sporting institutions grow.
1947: The first official India–Australia Test series
A defining milestone came in 1947, the year India became independent.
India's first official Test tour of Australia began later that year. The first Test between the two national sides commenced at the Brisbane Cricket Ground on 28 November 1947, with Australia winning by an innings and 226 runs. The five-Test series continued into February 1948, with Australia winning four matches and one drawn.
The result was one-sided, but the historical significance went beyond the scoreboard. It marked the beginning of official Test cricket between independent India and Australia.
The tour also created some of the moments that became part of cricket's shared history. In the second Test at Sydney in December 1947, Indian all-rounder Vinoo Mankad ran out Australian batter Bill Brown at the non-striker's end after Brown left his crease before the delivery. The dismissal became widely associated with the term “Mankading”.
These early encounters established a sporting relationship that would grow more competitive over time. They also show how international sport can preserve moments of disagreement and debate alongside its achievements.
Sources: BCCI — India in Australia: Part I; ICC — Australia v India: The Classics; historical Test scorecard.
1948 and beyond: Sport becomes a wider international connection
The early years after Indian independence were not free from political and cultural differences. Scholarly research on Australia–India cricket documents how attitudes inherited from colonial rule affected perceptions of the relationship.
Over subsequent decades, however, the sporting connection continued to develop through tours, international competition and the growing standing of Indian cricket.
India's 1983 Cricket World Cup victory was an important milestone in Indian cricket history. In the years that followed, Indian cricket administrators also played an increasingly influential role in international cricket governance. The relationship between Australia and India was consequently developing not only between teams, but also between powerful sporting institutions.
The growth of professional cricket created further opportunities for players and coaches to work across national borders. Australia's domestic cricket experience and India's enormous cricket audience and commercial ecosystem offered different strengths that could interact through competition, professional employment and shared learning.
This did not mean every period was harmonious. Controversies, disagreements and difficult series remained part of the history. But the relationship became much more than a succession of international fixtures.
2001: A scholarship programme creates another pathway
A significant example of structured sporting exchange appeared through the Border–Gavaskar Scholarship programme.
The Australia–India Council's 2000–01 annual report records support for the programme, which enabled promising young Indian cricketers to undertake coaching and training at the Commonwealth Bank Cricket Academy in Adelaide. The report identifies participants including Deepak Chougule, Parthiv Patel and Vinayak Mane. It also records that the Board of Control for Cricket in India funded the final two weeks of the programme.
This is an important example because it demonstrates a different model of sporting cooperation.
Instead of focusing solely on an international match, the programme invested in player development and professional learning. It brought together a bilateral council, cricket institutions and young athletes.
That model has relevance beyond cricket. Well-designed exchanges can help people gain experience, learn from different systems and develop skills that they take back to their own sporting environments.
The lesson is not that every exchange will produce an elite athlete. It is that international cooperation can create opportunities for development that a fixture alone cannot provide.
Source: Australian Government, DFAT — Australia–India Council Annual Report 2000–2001: Sport.
2004: Cooperation moves beyond cricket
Sporting cooperation was also becoming more formal outside the national cricket teams.
On 15 April 2004, Western Australia and the Sports Authority of India signed a memorandum of understanding to expand sports cooperation. The announcement described potential work in coach training, exchanges and visits by sporting personnel, and sports science.
The planned activities included workshops in India on sports science, coaching, sports infrastructure planning and the development of sports clubs.
This is a particularly relevant milestone in the history of the wider sporting relationship. It shows that Australia–India cooperation was not limited to the popularity of cricket or the success of individual athletes. It also involved the systems and knowledge needed to develop sport.
The Australian Government's archived announcement described a framework for possible cooperation, rather than evidence that every proposed activity was subsequently completed. That distinction matters when telling the story accurately.
The principle, however, is clear: sporting relationships can be developed deliberately through institutions, professional education and shared planning.
2014–2023: A formal framework for cooperation
Government-to-government cooperation continued to develop.
The Indian Government's Ministry of External Affairs records an Australia–India memorandum of understanding on cooperation in sport signed on 5 September 2014. The agreement was subsequently renewed, with further cooperation reflected in the 2023 arrangements.
In August 2023, India's Press Information Bureau announced Cabinet approval for a memorandum of understanding on sports cooperation between India's Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports and Australia's Department of Health and Aged Care.
The stated areas included sports science and technology, infrastructure, athlete and coach development, sports governance and integrity, grassroots participation, major sporting events, diversity and inclusion.
This represented a broadening of the conversation. It recognised that improving sporting outcomes involves more than the performance of individual teams. It can also involve research, training, governance, infrastructure and access to participation.
The significance of these frameworks lies in their ability to identify areas where the two countries can work together. Their existence should not be mistaken for proof that every proposed project has been delivered or that every sporting organisation has access to support.
Sources: Government of India — Cabinet approves MoU on Cooperation in Sports, 16 August 2023; Australian Government — India–Australia Sports Collaboration Roadmap.
2023–2025: Sport connects communities, business and education
In more recent years, sporting cooperation has increasingly been discussed as part of the broader Australia–India relationship.
The Centre for Australia–India Relations, launched in 2023, has worked with Cricket Australia and state governments to use the interest surrounding the 2024–25 Indian men's and women's cricket tours as a platform for wider engagement.
Australia's Sports Diplomacy 2032+ Strategy describes events held alongside the tours that brought together stakeholders from business, community, education and high-performance sport. These included a women's economic empowerment dialogue in Perth and a sports innovation summit in Brisbane.
The strategy presents these activities as a way of using the attention generated by cricket to support wider connections, including trade, tourism and innovation.
This is an important evolution. A major sporting tour can create an occasion for people to meet, but the longer-term value depends on what happens beyond the match — whether relationships develop, knowledge is exchanged or a practical project follows.
Sport is therefore both a shared cultural experience and a possible platform for broader cooperation. It does not guarantee commercial success or diplomatic outcomes, but it can create a setting in which new relationships become possible.
Source: Australian Government — Australia's Sports Diplomacy 2032+ Strategy.
2026 and the road to Ahmedabad 2030 and Brisbane 2032
On 9 July 2026, Australia and India welcomed the India–Australia Sports Collaboration Roadmap at the Third Australia–India Annual Summit in Melbourne.
The Roadmap identifies practical areas for cooperation in high-performance sport, coach development, sports science and technology, major events, the sports industry and women's sport. It also recognises the opportunity presented by the 2030 Commonwealth Games in Ahmedabad, the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and India's ambition to host a future Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Its approach is deliberately practical: activities are to be prioritised according to resources, institutional partnerships and event timelines, with responsibilities and funding arrangements negotiated on a case-by-case basis.
That creates a framework for exploring opportunities, not a guarantee that any particular organisation will receive funding, contracts or formal appointments.
For sporting bodies, universities, coaches, businesses and community organisations, the opportunity is to identify where they can contribute something useful and where cooperation with a counterpart in the other country could create mutual value.
The next chapter will depend on the quality of that work.
Source: India–Australia Sports Collaboration Roadmap — DFAT.
PlayForward Australia–India: Help shape the next chapter
The history of sport between Australia and India offers a powerful lesson: sporting relationships are built by people, sustained by institutions and strengthened when knowledge and opportunity can move between communities.
Cricket has provided some of the most visible moments. But the future is wider than any single sport.
It includes coaches and officials learning from different systems; researchers exploring performance, injury prevention and athlete wellbeing; businesses developing useful products and services; universities building educational connections; women and para-athletes gaining opportunities; and community organisations making participation more accessible.
It also includes the smaller organisations and emerging innovators who may have relevant expertise but do not always have an established international network.
PlayForward Australia–India is being developed to help bring attention to these wider possibilities and encourage connections across the sporting ecosystem. It is not a government programme or an official delivery partner of the bilateral Roadmap, and it cannot guarantee funding, contracts, introductions or sporting outcomes.
What it can invite is participation in a shared conversation about what should come next.
We welcome interest from Australian and Indian sporting organisations, athletes, coaches, officials, clubs, universities, researchers, businesses, technology innovators, manufacturers, educators and community organisations.
If you have expertise to share, an idea to explore, a challenge that could benefit from collaboration or an interest in building a relationship across the two countries, we invite you to join us.
The history has already been written by generations of people who crossed boundaries, shared knowledge and helped sport evolve. The next chapter is still taking shape.
Join PlayForward Australia–India. Bring your experience, your ideas and your ambition. Let's build on the history of our sporting relationship and explore what we can achieve together — on the field, behind the scenes and throughout the communities that make sport matter.
PlayForward articles distinguish official sources from independent explanation. Nothing here is government policy.