By Daniel Lewis
AS JULIA GILLARD has proved again, when it comes to the relationship between Australia and the subcontinent, there's no diplomatic tool more powerful than cricket.
The Prime Minister was in India last week to talk trade and cultural ties but what hogged the headlines was her announcement that the Indian cricket great, Sachin Tendulkar, would be awarded membership of the Order of Australia.
St Andrews stars ... Deepak Bhatia, Nikhil Anand, Arun Sharma and Gaurav Duggal.Credit: Adam Hollingworth
Ruchir Punjabi, the chairman of the Australia India Youth Dialogue, said honouring Tendulkar would win over more Indians than selling uranium to their country. Indeed, reaction to the Tendulkar award was in stark contrast to the hammering the Indian media gave Australia in 2009 over attacks on Indian students in Melbourne.
And it was cricket that also helped heal wounds when those attacks and the subsequent demonstrations by the Indian community threatened long-term harm to multiculturalism in Parramatta and particularly its ''Little India'' suburb of Harris Park in 2009.
Parramatta's St Andrews cricket club was invited to take part in a cricket-focused community day Parramatta City Council organised after the attacks to soothe tensions between the large local Indian population and the rest of the community.
St Andrews has been involved in Sydney's church cricket league since 1956. Until the community day, it had only had a smattering of players from India. But the initiative resulted in a flood of Indians signing up for the 2009-10 season and the club has continued to seek recruits from the local Indian population.
This season's A-grade is mostly Indians and overall they make up about a third of the club's players. St Andrews is affiliated with the Uniting Church but many players now are Hindus and Muslims.
St Andrews president, Greg Gibb, said cricket had been a great tool for fixing the problems of 2009 and he had heard nothing negative about the Indian players in the Parramatta community.
''It's been a good way … to bring about a lack of tension in the community - through sport,'' he said.
Arun Sharma, captain of the St Andrews A-grade side, is a 44-year-old IT specialist from Delhi. He says cricket has ''absolutely'' helped solve the problems aired in 2009. ''These things help with integration,'' he said.