HARBHAJAN SINGH – THE BATTERING RAM

(By Karthik Narayan)

(India’s first hat trick man in tests)


Rewind back to the 1990s, and think Indian Spinners. Draws a blank, doesn’t it? it was the time when Indian cricket had a dearth of quality spinners; nobody really flourished in the team. Nobody made the impact in the world stage except Anil Kumble who was perhaps the lone spinner of the mid 90s. Then towards the end of the decade popped a new star in the making – a cheeky rookie with hopes of append his name to the Hall of Fame of a land famed for its spinners. A sardar from Jallandhar named Harbhajan Singh.

His first series was against the Aussies in 1998 when they had toured India. This off spinner started off reasonably well in his first season with the Indian team.

However, like his mentor Muralitharan, this sardar’s action has also come under the hammer a couple of times, and it was corrected with the help of some experts. He has overcome the trauma of those turbulent times.

Harbhajan made a comeback to the Indian team in the early 2000 season. And this time his opportunity to seal his place in the team was more important. And he did himself proud in 2001 when the Aussies came to India.

It was in this series against the Aussies that proved as the watershed for this wonderful bowler. All ideas of conquering the Final Frontier by the Aussies were spoiled by this offie. Steve Waugh’s Final Frontier Dream was never to come true and Harbhajan was the major spoilsport picking up an amazing 32 wickets in just 3 tests including a hat trick – the first ever by an Indian in a test match, and this hatter had done it! That super performance earned him the Player of the Series award.

Harbhajan has always been the trump card for his captain, Saurav Ganguly, who has used him as a matchwinning bowler on most occasions and true to his being Hatchet Man, he has been quite good at his pursuits.

Naturally, his prolific run of success with the ball gave him access to landmarks – he is the fastest and youngest Indian to reach 200 test wickets.

Harbhajan has a high arm action and a loop that befuddled many a batsman. He has a shortish run up (as most spinners have), but he opens his shoulders as he begins to deliver the ball and this ends in a high action that means more chances of bounce and good aggressive turn off the pitch. He possesses turn, bite and control.

As far as his batting is concerned, being a tailender, he is not very prominent for his batting. His batting style reminds you of tennis slams! But even with his acrobatic, unorthodox ways of batting, he has dealt some lusty blows and made valuable runs for his team, especially in the slog overs in the ODIs. He has to work on his batting, though – such unorthodox manner will not earn him accolades with any cricket lover.

Normally, Harbhajan is an outfielder and his fielding hasn’t been out of the ordinary, but he has a decent throw from the outfield, though wayward. Again, an area he has to work on.

As an individual, Harbhajan can be trusted to keep the momentum going, as he is an aggressive and attacking bowler. He has mastered the doosra quite well and disguises it well and bamboozles many a quality batsman.

Now it is time to take our hats off to this youngster who has earned respect from world-class players all around the globe. He has reached a stage where he can conquer the whole world and snare many more batsmen and wickets and I personally wish him all the best at it!