Tossing, turning Harbhajan Singh rises again

A day after taking Mumbai Indians to the IPL final, Harbhajan Singh celebrates his Test recall . (Source: Express Photo by Vasant Prabhu)

Harbhajan Singh is staring at the pitch. A Ranji Trophy game against Saurashtra had just concluded and Harbhajan beckons me to join him to have a look at Rajkot’s Khanderi stadium. Nearly 1300 runs had flooded in just two innings in that four-day game played in last December. Clearly frustrated with the batting tracks in domestic cricket, Harbhajan took a snap of the run-laden patta strip and said: “How would you expect to produce a spinner when you offer this kind of dead pitches?”

Since the time he has lost his place from the Indian team in 2013, Harbhajan had the task of leading a group of young Punjab boys even as he, along with Yuvraj Singh , eyed a comeback to the Indian team. Yuvraj had the easier job of the two: Every now and then, he would get a batting pitch and in general, had to face inexperienced bowlers in domestic cricket to help him get back amongst runs but Harbhajan didn’t have such luxury.

“Domestic season can be cruel. There are venues, which are absolutely seamers paradise and there are venues where bowlers don’t get anything. Spinners don’t even bowl in most of the games. But yahan yeh dekha jata hai ke kitne game hue hain aur uss bowler ne kitne over daale hain. (But people see how many games has a bowler played and how many wickets has he taken in them). Nobody sees that those eight wickets are taken in 40 or 50 overs,” Harbhajan says.

Being a captain also meant that he had to put the team above himself and use his seamers to exploit favourable conditions. “The pitch was green, how can you expect a spinner to bowl? I had to just wait, the situation demanded that seamers should bowl more overs. On other tracks, we would pray that something happens on fourth day of the game. That the pitch would break up.”

It rarely happened and as a result it was deemed that Harbhajan’s domestic seasons were considered just average. At 34, Harbhajan admits that the recent past was tough and takes a long pause when asked about the recent lows.

“Lowest kuch nahi, (nothing really) I never thought too much. Everything is ok yaar. I don’t get too excited or get depressed so easily. Sometimes you do well and sometimes you don’t. After all it is not the end of the world. Nahi hua toh koi baat nahi, there is never end of road. My motive was to try hard and make a comeback.”

It’s in this context that he has made this latest comeback to the Test team for the tour of Bangladesh. Without a doubt, he has had a good IPL season where he hasn’t just filled the wickets column but has actually bowled well under pressure. The selection will no doubt throw up the question why the IPL performances have translated into a spot in the Test team and what did Harbhajan do in Ranji Trophy last season?

For the record he played just three matches and took six wickets at 42.50.

That stat doesn’t quite tell the full story though. It’s not as if Harbhajan has obstructed any young spinner. His selection in fact reflects on the paucity of good young spinners in the country. There have been a few reasons for it. Apart from their none-too-great skill levels, the domestic pitches with 4mm grass covering that came into place after India lost 8-0 in Tests in 2011-12 in England and Australia have played a part.

Harbhajan of old

The good thing about his bowling in IPL is that his best spells have come when he has bowled as if they have been Tests. Tossing up the ball, getting it to loop, slowing them down and even managing to get some drift on the odd occasion. His dismissal of Suresh Raina on Tuesday was a good example. The ball drifted in from round the stumps, dipped around middle and off before it began to turn. Raina was lured forward by the flight but doubts crept in with the drift and the dip. He just managed to jab it back to Harbhajan.

When the selectors made the decision to pick him, Harbhajan was getting four stitches on his right hand — injured while fielding in the last IPL game — in one of South Mumbai Hospitals. When he got back to the hotel, he was welcomed by reporters and television crews. And there were plenty of selfie hunters too at the lobby.

The challenge ahead of him is stiff, though. He has to take what he has done well in a two-over spell in the IPL and repeat it over in longer spells. It will come down his temperament if the wickets don’t come that easily. But the way he has bowled raises hope. He hasn’t darted them across or targeted the leg and middle line under pressure as he has been guilty of in the past but has actually tried to outfox the batsmen.

When Harbhajan manages to get over his own self doubts and operate like a strike bowler, he has been a different bowler. It’s when that version of self-doubting Harbhajan kicks in that his problems begin. Surely, by now, he knows what works for him and what doesn’t and so it will be fascinating to see how he bowls in this latest comeback.

Squads

Test: Virat Kohli (capt), M Vijay, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma, Wriddhiman Saha, R Ashwin, Harbhajan Singh, Karn Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Varun Aaron, Ishant Sharma

ODI: MS Dhoni (capt), Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu, R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Mohit Sharma, Stuart Binny, Dhawal Kulkarni

Source:: Indian Express