Australia will meet India on a cricket pitch in Ahmedabad next week, as part of the countries’ collaboration for sporting infrastructure, and play a first-of-its-kind friendly cricket match bringing together senior leaders from both sides – Phillip Green, High Commissioner of Australia to India, and Harsh Sanghavi, Deputy Chief Minister, Gujarat, who will captain the respective teams.
With Australia having already hosted five Commonwealth Games and Brisbane winning the bid to host the Summer Olympics in 2032, it is considered an “expert” in the business of managing major sporting events, officials said. Also, Australian sports infrastructure and management companies like Cox and Populous have been engaged in developing sports infrastructure in Gujarat, particularly Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar.
Australian High Commissioner to India Phillip Green, who will captain the Aussie team, says this is part of the “building” of the sports collaboration between the two countries. “Australia and India got a long and very positive collaboration in sports, but there is now a new opportunity. As part of India’s coming to greatness in the global sphere, it’s clear that India wants to host major international sporting events and do it well, as a demonstration of India’s global reach. Australia happens to be a country which has done a lot in sports and knows a bit about the business of managing major sporting events. We also know a little bit about the business of high talent, elite talent development,” he said.
With a population of just 27 million, which is over a third of Gujarat’s population, Australia was “fourth or fifth” on the medal table at the Paris Olympics, and this “friendly match” hopes to take the August 2023 MoU between the two countries forward, Green added.
“So these are capabilities that we have, and I can see a big opportunity for Australia and India to collaborate when it comes to the next phase in India’s sporting development,” he told The Indian Express.
In August 2023, India and Australia strengthened their ‘Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’ through key agreements focusing on cooperation in sports and trade facilitation. The MoU includes bilateral exchange programs in sports, sports sciences, athlete and coach training, sports governance, and grassroots participation.
Role of Ahmedabad
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Highlighting the role of Ahmedabad in future international sporting events, Green said, “Ahmedabad is at the centre of these ties as this will be the place where the Commonwealth Games will be held in 2030. Who knows, it may be the place for the Olympic Games in the near future? Australian firms like Populous and Cox Architecture will be heavily involved in the delivery of the upgradation in sporting capabilities. We have now announced some steps forward in the field of high athlete development. So, we will be having mechanisms to support swimming in India, mechanisms to support para-athletes in India, and mechanisms to support high athlete development as a whole, together with our top institutes like the Australian Institute of Sport.”
“Where I would be looking for breaking new ground in terms of that sort of architecture is between Gujarat and Queensland. Queensland is the state in Australia that will host our Olympics. Gujarat is a state like Queensland, which has a big future together in major sporting events. That is a natural fit between the states,” he added.
A senior government official told this paper that Cox Architecture is engaged in a consortium with British firm BDP and Indian firm Collage Design.
“This ‘BCC Consortia’ has won the design bid for the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel enclave sports infrastructure buildout in Ahmedabad. Populous’s engagement on the SVP Enclave Ahmedabad, directed by its Brisbane office, has been running for over four years, including Ahmedabad Olympic Feasibility and Gap Assessment, Masterplan, Visioning and Concept Design for the SVP Sports Enclave, Masterplan, Visioning and Concept Design for the Gujarat Police Academy at Karai – including the design of the 50,000-capacity new athletics stadium, Peer review of the work done by the Detailed Design Agency (Cox+BDP),” the officer told this paper.
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Stressing the burden and legacy of infrastructure from the Australian experience, Green referred to it as one of the challenges. “There are conversations about the legacy that major sporting precincts leave. You can have a Commonwealth Games, but what are you going to do with those facilities? With the precinct that is developed, you can have major games, and you have a lot of people come during that two-week period and enjoy that precinct, but what is the legacy it brings for the people of Ahmedabad afterwards? That’s extremely important… You can build a major stadium, and it’s great for a couple of weeks in an event, but you want to build it in a way that allows the person who’s going to run the group to have a sustainable future in rock concerts or other sporting events or whatever, and so forth. It’s not just about preparing for a Commonwealth Games or Olympic Games. And we’ve got some of our top people here as we did in March last year to talk through some of the opportunities.”
Giving an example of how Brisbane is readying for the Olympics, the accommodation being created that will be used even after the Games, Green called it a challenge of integration.
“Another challenge is integration, making sure that your sporting facilities work in an ecosystem… that will make for the amenity of the people of Ahmedabad for a lifetime. And that’s some of the things where we’ve learnt some lessons, like accommodation…” he explained.
However, Green appreciated the speed of building infrastructure in India: “I look at my country, we do a lot of things well, and we build infrastructure well, but it’s slow. You have a huge advantage of a workforce, which is able to produce major infrastructure in a very quick time and relatively cheaply. Always in these events, time is never on your side. And time is pressing for the Commonwealth Games, time is pressing for the Olympic Games in Brisbane in 2032.”
