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Harbhajan Singh -
The Battering Ram |
A
profile on India's first hat trick man in tests
by Karthik Narayan published on Oct 26, 2005
 Off
spinners are found everywhere in India, but it
took many years for Indian Cricket to find an
off break bowler after the 80s who could run
through batting line ups just as how the great
Erapalli Prasanna or Srinivas Venkatraghavan
did. No Indian spinner made the impact on the
world stage for a long duration 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, Sourav Ganguly, who has used him as a
match winning 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.
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