New Delhi: One of India’s greatest spinners, Harbhajan Singh, is celebrating his birthday today on July 3. He had a great international career and performed brilliantly across all formats. The former spinner was part of the MS Dhoni-led 2007 T20 World Cup-winning team in South Africa and the 2011 World Cup-winning squad in the subcontinent.
Harbhajan also played a crucial role in India’s rise in the longest format of the game with his career-defining performance in the 2001 Border-Gavaskar Trophy. With senior players like Anil Kumble and Javagal Srinath injured, he delivered remarkable spells and picked up 32 wickets, helping India to beat Australia by 2-1 in the unforgettable series.
He was born in Jalandhar, Punjab, in 1980 and burst onto the scene as a young prodigy. Harbhajan had a different action which helped him to extract more turn and drift to beat the batter. The spinner made his Ranji Trophy debut for Punjab before turning 18 and was fast-tracked to play for the country with a Test debut in 1998 against Australia in Bangalore.
In total, he has played 103 Tests, 236 ODIs and 28 T20I matches for India. He picked 417 wickets in the longest format of the game and also took 269 scalps in ODIs while taking 25 wickets in the shortest format. Harbhajan finished his career with 28 five-wicket hauls at the highest level, including 25 in Test cricket, with best figures of 8/84 against the Aussies.
Harbhajan also played 163 IPL games for multiple franchises and picked up 150 scalps at a stunning economy rate of 7.07.
