Welcome to the Indian Summer of Cricket
Assimilation remains an elusive fantasy
Written by Flynn Holman, find more of his content on 𝕏 @Flynn_Holman_
As I sit here watching the disappointing effort of Australia in their first test cricket match against India of the summer, I ponder at the sheer size of the Indian crowd in an Australian stadium. For those watching Seven’s coverage of the test, you might not have even realised that the match was taking place in Australia. Between the special interest stories on the rags to riches journey of Indian opener Yashasvi Jaiswal, to the advertisement of Seven’s new Hindi commentary and the panning crowd shots of Indian supporters, it really makes you wonder where the allegiance of Australia’s most watched mainstream network truly lies.
As is often the case, the Indian crowd is presented as a positive story. News articles focus on the record crowds and the cultural ‘enrichment’ our Indian neighbours bring. For those who have followed much of my recent work, the nature and impact of migration on Australia has been of particular interest to me, but even so, the level of praise for the Indian crowds remains somewhat discordant with my own impression of the cultural icon which is the Australian cricket team. Can this even be called a home match, when the crowd and coverage appear to pander to the growing Indian diaspora?
Former MP Graeme Campbell addressed this topic of our multicultural reality in a recent episode of The Backbench Drivers,
“We don’t have multiculturalism, we have multiracialism. These people don’t have any loyalty to Australia”.
This is no more evident than when you flick on an Australian sporting event. The myriad of ethnic enclaves across the Australian capitals will turn out in large numbers, but rather than supporting their new country, they become loud and loyal supporters of their ethnic heritage. This is particularly apparent among these new Indian migrants, so-called new ‘Australians’, at this first test. It highlights how impossible the task of integration truly is, migrants don’t dissociate their ethnic identity from their new country, but rather their ethnic allegiance seems heightened. Far from multiculturalism, tribalism has overtaken Australia’s ethnic enclaves and disregard for our nation is encouraged. Naturally, I begun to question how the rising tribalism of Indian migration has impacted our recent cricket results against India on home soil.
Since Indian independence from Britain in 1947, Australia has seen small levels of migration from the sub-continent, averaging approximately 1500 new migrants per year. This drastically changed from 2001. As highlighted by the red line on the graph above, Indian migration has dramatically increased over recent years. Today we average 39,000 new Indian migrants per year, and this has shown no indication of slowing down (to the contrary, 2023 and 2024 data reveal a migration rate which is only increasing).
Suburbs like Harris Park in Sydney, Werribee in Melbourne and Canning Vale in Perth have become unofficial ‘Little India’ enclaves. No doubt we will see these migrants grace the stands of our cricketing hallowed halls across the summer. Australia was once unbeatable on our own shores, the most successful team in cricketing history. Our fast bowlers stunned the foreigners with their speed and bounce. Our batsmen revelled in the raucous Aussie crowds. Today, we find ourselves facing a three series losing streak against the Indians, in Australia. To what level can this be explained by an increasingly hostile crowd on our own shores?
In what is a somewhat crude analysis, due to the irregularity of our test matches with India, there does appear to be a correlation between the number of Indian migrants and the number of Australian wins or draws in test matches against India, in Australia. Whilst we emphatically won series’ against India in the 20th century, our recent form has diminished, and this is reasonably well correlated (R2 = 0.5) with the growth of Indian migrants in our community. You cannot of course determine a causation effect from such little data, but when the hostility of the home crowd is diminished by foreign supporters, this must weaken the fortress which has been the sacred grounds Australian cricket. There is no doubt the Hindi chants and support of Australia’s new migrants would boost the Indian team, to the detriment of our own, revealing the frailty of their supposed integration into our communities.
It may seem to be an inconsequential impact. There are much more pressing threats to Australia than a floundering national cricket team. But this test is broadcast into millions of Australian homes, and to the many politically ambivalent Australians, the attempted normalisation of multiculturalism continues. To pursue an Australia First agenda, we must be reclaiming and fortifying Australian cultural institutions, like the summer of cricket, against the undue influence of foreigners. If these new migrants can’t even support Australia at sport, what hope is there that they ever consider anything other than their own ethnic interest when it comes to politics? In the words of Campbell, “Unless we have a national identity, we will be subsumed by multiculturalism.” Sport has a way of bringing out one’s true loyalties and has formed an important part of Australia’s national identity. It is increasingly clear that Australia’s dogma of multiracialism has introduced enumerate migrants into our country. Migrants which are eroding our national identity. Migrants that don’t truly call Australia home.
There are many areas, suburbs, that make me feel I’m in a foreign country. On occasions I’m the only white in an entire shopping mall and nobody is speaking English. I wouldn’t mind as much if many chose to integrate, assimilate and want to be Australian. I know they do not. Look at high school children out of school- they mostly are with their own ethnicity. So even the kids don’t appear to have a need to become Australian. Happy remaining who they are.
But I’ve been saying this for years.
At a tipping point. Soon to be outnumbered. All by design. Libs and Labor have no intentions of stopping this onslaught and too many Aussies don’t seem interested. They might in another generation when it will be too late.
When we see a large number of one group, who arrive in quick succession, and form enclaves - like metastasizing cancer node - in the broader society, those new arrivals will not integrate with their new host country any more than they have to. They will continue to talk in their native language, and not get better at English language. This then burdens or society with having to provide translators at Centrelink, or other factors whee language skills are required such as in workplaces, fully understanding road rules or even in other community interactions - transactional or cultural.
These enclaves tend to spend their money within their own group - so they buy their type of food from their ethnic grocers, they go to a barber shop run by their ethnic peers. They inhabit online chat spaces in their own language and organise for their own communities, excluding the broader society from those events or any opportunity to mingle in to their world (because we are the ones expected to be welcoming and make those moves to the newcomers (but they reject us or exclude us when we try). Perhaps it is food, religion or some other ethnic position or factor, but they don't want us spoiling their 'family get together'.
By having the critical mass and concentration of fellow ex-pats, they have no need or desire to not just behave as if our cities and suburbs are just fancy upgrades to their own lives. They don't see themselves as living in Australia, or a country that is giving them opportunities, they see that they are treating their new situation as being able to fly in and out of the nice suburbs they wish they had back in their home countries. They can come here, access safe, clean spaces, indoor plumbing, avoid the diseases, the beggars, the rats, the open sewers, the caste system (although they do still practice that within their own communities here in AU).
Given the opportunities, they still just carry on in many ways like they are still in India, except in a nice place.
They are here to exploit what they can, take what they can - they don't grow as people and adopt the ways of our society (ways that made our society desirable, safe and prosperous in the first place). Their cultural persistence of things like exploiting fellow immigrants in workplaces or perpetuating the caste system eventually turns our society backwards, and we slowly degrade to the third world standards they wanted to leave behind.
Many immigrants these days (not just Indians, but Asians too) are coming to Australia not just to get a free ride on our well developed services, to get away from the overcrowding or oppressive governments, but simply for personal economic gain and lifestyle reasons. They have no loyalty to us, but to themselves. If Canada or USA were easier options, they would move there, again, in their own self interests. They seek not to work hard and build their own countries - like our ancestors did for us over time - but to just jump to the front of the queue, literally, and in life. They have not paid taxes for years to enable the roads, hospitals, school etc to be available, but they will fly in, breed up, bring elderly relatives and take full advantage of what we have created for our own people.
There is a clear distinction with the post WWII Europeans migrants and the £10 poms in the 1960's... they came here to build a new life, to contribute, and they came from a similar culture and with similar outlooks to the locals. The Asian and Indian migrants have none of that, they just want to take, and choose to remain isolated from the broader Australian society. They are not the new wave of New Australians ' they are just visitors even invaders, who come here to exploit our kindness, to take what they can from an advanced society that the would never have in their lifetime back in their old country, and they feel no obligation to contribute, give back or share.
If they get into local government or other positions in society here, it is not to contribute to everyone's welfare, or the greater good of Australian society - it is to further their ethnic interests, another tentacle in their creeping, swarming mentality of gaining opportunities for themselves and their own kind.
That division and lack of willingness to integrate, as well as their locust like concentration in various suburbs, is apparent. They are not Australians, they never will be, and it seems they don;t want to be. They are Indians living better than the others they left behind, who would also come here is they could for the free ride that seems to be on offer.
They are invaders, and there needs to be control and conditions on mass immigration, especially from culturally divergent places.