Former Indian off-spinner Harbhajan Singh, who announced his retirement from all forms of the game yesterday, has said that he should have been backed in 2012 when he had already taken 400 test wickets for India and if he had been backed at that point of time, he would have finished his career with 550 test wickets.
The test career of Harbhajan Singh went downhill after the 2011 tour of England, where he suffered an abdomen injury. Even when Harbhajan regained his fitness, he was never able to establish his place back into the Indian test side after that.
Ravichandran Ashwin, who was an emerging spinner and was impressing one and all with his consistent performances, was backed by the then Indian captain MS Dhoni, as he went on to become India’s first-choice spinner in all formats of the game, displacing Harbhajan from the top of the pecking order of the Indian spinners.
A decade later, Ashwin has now gone past Harbhajan in terms of the total no. of test wickets as well, while Harbhajan last represented India 5 years back in white-ball cricket in 2016. The last test match that Harbhajan played was in 2015 against Sri Lanka, when Virat Kohli had newly taken over the Test captaincy from MS Dhoni.
Harbhajan Singh lost his touch in test cricket in 2010-11
Harbhajan’s own form with the ball was also one of the main reasons why he fell behind Ashwin in the pecking order, as his performances in test cricket in 2010 and 2011 didn’t match the standards he had set for themselves. The veteran offie, who is fondly called the turbanator, averaged close to 40 with the ball in the 18 test matches that he played in 2010 and 2011.
In a recent interview given to the Hindi daily Dainik Jagran, Harbhajan said that Sourav Ganguly was the only captain who backed him when he needed the backing in 2001. After that, he never felt as if he needed any sort of backing for the next 10 years. When he needed it again in 2012, he didn’t get it.
