Harbhajan Singh, the veteran off-spinner, officially retired from all forms of cricket. Harbhajan debuted for India in 1998 and last played an international match in 2016. The bowler managed to pick up more than 700 wickets for India and was part of the World Cup-winning squads in 2007 and 2011. In this piece, we look at his best performances across various formats and analyze the career of one of the greatest players from India.
Test career
Harbhajan is India’s fourth-highest wicket-taker in the longest format. For a bowler who had a 17-year long career in this format to produce his best years in the initial stages of his career speaks volumes about his skills and talent. Harbhajan picked up 123 wickets in 2001 and 2002 combined. At that time, he was only behind Shane Warne (125) and Muttiah Muralitharan (135), both of whom were a good 8-9 years into their careers, whereas it was Harbhajan’s only third year in Indian whites.
This period also saw Harbhajan’s best series as a bowler. In the 2001 series against Australia, the off-spinner picked up 32 wickets, his highest ever in any series. The next highest in the list for India were Sachin Tendulkar and Zaheer Khan with three wickets each. India was playing against Australia, an almost invincible team of that era without their prime spinner in Anil Kumble. A 22-year-old making such a huge impact in that series would be the highlight of his Test career. The icing on the cake during the series – Harbhajan became the first Indian to pick up a Test match hat-trick.
One Day Internationals
The away stats of an Indian spinner in Test matches have been heavily discussed in cricketing communities. But there is very little talk about their returns in away ODIs. Harbhajan is the highest wicket-taker as a spinner for India in away ODIs. He has 89 scalps, the next highest is Kumble, who had only 67 in almost the same number of matches.
The spinner played crucial roles in two World Cups for India, picking 11 and 9 wickets in 2003 and 2011 respectively. But impact-wise, his best performance came in the finals (Best of Three) of the 2007-08 Commonwealth Bank series against Australia. In the first final, after an early collapse and being 24-3, Australia managed to reach 124-3 in 23 overs and were looking set for a score of 275 plus. Harbhajan dismissed both the set batters, Andrew Symonds and Mathew Hayden, which helped India restrict Australia to 239/8.
The second final too had a similar storyline. Chasing 259, Australia was reduced to 32-3 and once again, Hayden and Symonds had a big partnership. Harbhajan picked up Symonds and was able to play a part in Hayden’s run-out. All this in a span of three balls. His impact in India winning these two finals was huge and probably one of the highlights of his career.
T20s
As of now, the highest-ranked finger-spinner in the T20I rankings for bowlers is Mahedi Hasan at 13th place. There are seven leg spinners/ mystery bowlers in the top 10. Finger spinner, more so an off-spinner, has been seen as a liability in the T20 format. Harbhajan played only 28 T20Is for India, but he was very clever with his line and lengths. For spinners who have more than 10 wickets for India, he has the best economy rate of 6.28.
Harbhajan has played most of his IPL career for Mumbai Indians, and he has been successful for them even on a ground like Wankhede. The economy rate for spinners on that ground is 7.71, Harbhajan’s was 7.02, with 49 wickets to his name. Harbhajan was performing well in the IPL, his 2019 stint with CSK, where he picked 16 wickets in a season, showed that he was getting better with age, using all his experience.
Also known as Bhajji or Turbanator, Harbhajan will always be one of India’s best spinners to ever play the game and probably one of the few ever to dominate in all the formats.