Brett Lee assures Indians on Australia's safety
Violence against Indian students and subsequent protests in Melbourne in June have received wide air play across the subcontinent.
And in the wake of damage to Australia's reputation, Lee was called upon in in New Delhi as an ambassador for Melbourne's Deakin University to soothe fears about travel to Australia.
As befits a cricketer with a widely-professed love of India and a range of commercial links to the country, the fast bowler spoke passionately about the relationship between the two countries.
"It's up to us to get the message across now that people who want to study from here in India and come back to Australia and study - it is very safe," he said.
"I'm very happy to sit up publicly and say that.
"This is probably the only time I'll use my profile like this to get something, and that's to improve relations between Australia and India."
The local media assembled at the Maurya Sheraton Hotel seemed to care rather less about matters of education and international relations than about whether or not Lee would play in the third one day match against India on Saturday.
There were also questions about his future, the form of Sachin Tendulkar, the Feroz Shah Kotla pitch and other cricket topics - barely a single local query was about Indian students.
Several times the increasingly flustered compere tried to push the agenda back into India-Australia relations and each time the media pulled just as hard towards cricket matters.
So Lee, still smiling, was caught between trying to please the university he represented and the hungry crowd of reporters before him.
Nevertheless, he was able to make a few points about exchanges between the countries.
Lee said there was still a significant gap of cultural understanding between Australians and Indians, though cricket was bridging this.
He insisted Australia was a safe destination for Indian students and travellers alike, describing the ugly scenes in Melbourne as a "one-off".
Lastly and perhaps most surprisingly, Lee revealed he had never seen the Taj Mahal despite visiting India more than 20 times.
