Gandhinagar: Australia is pushing to engage with India in sports beyond cricket and in hosting major sporting events, Australia’s high commissioner to India, Philip Green, said in an exclusive interaction with TOI. “The link in cricket is strong, and on a rapid upward path across men’s, women’s, differently abled, Tests, IPL and T20s. The cricket engagement is pretty mature, but where I am throwing my effort is behind the engagement in other sports and particular major sporting events, because this is where India is seeking to make a new and higher mark. This is where Australia already has quite some skills and capabilities,” the high commissioner said.He termed hosting the Commonwealth Games (CWG) in 2030 and the ambitions to host the 2036 Olympics as “an important step in India’s national journey”.Asked how Australia can assist India in organizing a globally successful multi-sporting games, Green elaborated, “There is a nice pathway here. Australia is hosting the Olympics in 2032. India is hosting the Commonwealth Games in 2030, and has the ambition to host the 2036 Olympics. So, if I read the Indian and Gujarati ambitions right, this is an important step in India’s national journey. India is emerging as one of the greatest players in global affairs, and one of the ways in which India rightly wants to demonstrate that is through hosting truly global events, and there is none that is more significant than an Olympics.“He further said that Australia has embarked on a journey to support India in its ambition to fulfil its potential as a sporting nation in the context of major sporting events.“The other thing that I can see, and that we have already embarked on, is Australia being able to provide support to India in its ambition to fulfil its potential actually as a sporting nation in the context of major sporting events. So our foreign minister made a visit to Delhi in Nov, and she made three announcements about ways in which we would be supporting India in this field. So we are already on this pathway, but I can see that there could be more ways in which Australia and India can benefit. That India may be able to benefit from our elite sporting expertise, and Australia can certainly play a part in making sure that India hosts really high class major sporting events,” said Green, who is also Australia’s ambassador to Bhutan.
