HARBHAJAN SINGH

Personal Information

Born

Jul 03, 1980 (36 years)

Birth Place

Jullundur (now Jalandhar), Punjab

Nickname

Harbhajan

Height

5 ft 11 in (180 cm)

Role

Bowler

Batting Style

Right Handed Bat

Bowling Style

Right-arm offbreak 

Batting Career Summary

	M	Inn	NO	Runs	HS	Avg	BF	SR	100	200	50	4s	6s	St
Tests	103	145	23	2225	115	18.24	3432	64.83	2	0	9	277	42	0
ODI	236	128	35	1237	49	13.3	1526	81.06	0	0	0	92	35	0
T20I	28	13	5	108	21	13.5	87	124.14	0	0	0	11	4	0
IPL	125	77	28	782	64	15.96	545	143.49	0	0	1	76	40	0

Bowling Career Summary

	M	Inn	B	Runs	Wkts	BBI	BBM	Econ	Avg	SR	5W	10W
Tests	103	190	28580	13537	417	84/8	217/15	2.84	32.46	68.54	25	5
ODI	236	227	12479	8973	269	31/5	31/5	4.32	33.36	46.39	3	0
T20I	28	27	612	633	25	12/4	12/4	6.21	25.32	24.48	0	0
IPL	125	123	2673	3119	119	18/5	18/5	7.01	26.21	22.46	1	0

Career Information

Intl Debut

at 17y  vs Australia . Mar 25, 1998

Last Intl Match

vs United Arab Emirates . Mar 03, 2016

Current Teams

Mumbai Indians, Asia XI, India, India Green, North Zone, Punjab, Rest of India 

Profile

Harbhajan Singh started off his career in tempestuous fashion, when he was thrown out of the National Cricket Academy for indiscipline and pulled up by the match referee after giving a verbal send-off to a still young Ricky Ponting. He and Ponting would go on to develop a famous rivalry, with the off-spinner getting the better of the batsman consistently during the early years.

His career was rescued from potential oblivion when Sourav Ganguly fought for his inclusion in the classic 2001 series against Australia. Harbhajan turned in a single-handed bowling performance scalping 32 Australian wickets in the 3-Test series as India came back from the dead to win 2-1. Understandably, he never quite managed to replicate those numbers, but that performance established him as a regular member of the Indian team. Mentored by Anil Kumble in his early years, the pupil upstaged the master, when Harbhajan became the team's first choice spinner, especially in ODIs, where his free-hitting ability was of value lower down the order.

However, Kumble soon made a comeback to the team as Harbhajan lost some of his loop and flight and veered into more predictable territory, firing balls in to maintain a containing rather than a wicket-taking line. After Kumble's retirement, he was once again installed as the leader of India's spin bowling attack.

One of the blots on his CV is the large discrepancy between his home and away records. He averages 28.76 runs per wicket at home, but away that average shoots up to 38.83.

Harbhajan Singh was an integral part of the World Cup winning team in 2011 but the season after that turned out to be his toughest. A string of poor performances for a period of two seasons - 2010 and 2011 - led to questions about his place in the side. Harbhajan went past the 400 wicket tally in Tests in West Indies, but could not deliver quality goods consistently and the selectors decided to axe him from the national team after the disastrous tour of England. He fought hard in the domestic circuit initially but could not do much there either. With India preferring Ashwin to Harbhajan in all formats, the Sardar signed up with Essex in the latter part of 2012. Although his performances were not great, he made a comeback to the national side for the World T20 in Sri Lanka. He remained in and out of the side and was back in the Test squad against Australia after almost a year and half, barring the one-off Test that he featured against England in November 2012. Harbhajan played his 100th Test - the 10th Indian to do so - in Chennai against Australia in February 2013. However, he has not been able to get back into any Indian side and the last ODI he played was in June 2011.

Always combative, and never giving up, Harbhajan has recently worked on his batting to add a valuable dimension to his skills, and has often come up with key cameos. He also has two Test centuries to his name, both coming against New Zealand in 2010.

He is the most successful off-spinner India has produced, in terms of wickets in Test matches.

Lack of opportunities at the highest level meant, Harbhajan has had to play the domestic games and has been playing regularly for his state side Punjab besides playing for Rest of India in the Irani Trophy.

Other than cricketing matters, Harbhajan has often been in the news for flare-ups on the field, and none was more prominent than the one in the infamous India-Australia Sydney Test in 2008. Accused of racially abusing Andrew Symonds -- with whom Harbhajan had already had several altercations -- he was initially banned for 3 Test matches. However, the ban was revoked after the Indian team threatened to withdraw from the tour since the match referee, Mike Procter, had no recourse to either audio or video evidence against Harbhajan. Later that same year though, Harbhajan was banned from playing the inaugural IPL after slapping S Sreesanth after a match between their teams.

IPL: Harbhajan Singh has been an integral part of Mumbai Indians since the first edition of the IPL. In the absence of the injured Tendulkar, Harbhajan captained the Mumbai franchise to title victory in the 2011 edition of the Champions League. He stepped down from captaincy for the 2013 IPL edition as he couldn't handle the burden. The Mumbai franchise decided to retain him for the 2014 edition of the tournament as well.