Without much of a doubt, one can share the fact that Harbhajan Singh has been a great for the country with the ball. His talent, experience and exceptional skill to star with the ball courtesy his off spin talent held the country in good stead, be it contests played at home in India or abroad. More importantly, it could be said that at a time where India under Sourav Ganguly may have just been a tad over reliant on Anil Kumble as the matchsaving or matchwinning spinner, Harbhajan Singh’s arrival as the big talent with the ball, especially in the red ball game, often swung games in his team’s favour.

Over the course of a strikingly good, 17 year long and successful career where “Bhajji”, as he’s lovingly called collected no fewer than 417 wickets in Test matches and 269 in one day cricket, the cricketer became a household name.

But an interesting question that arises where Harbhajan Singh’s career is concerned if he had always dreamt of becoming an off spinner for his country and whether there were other cricketing skills that he had fashioned for himself and planned to pursue at the highest annals of the game?  

To this, rather interestingly, Harbhajan has spoken frankly in his recent exchange with Rajya Sabha TV

A Rajya Sabha MP himself, the widely noted cricketer from Punjab shared an interesting story with regard to his own career and how a legend from the yesteryear’s in the form of Kapil Dev had an impact over his journey-

“I wanted to be like Kapil Paaji (Kapil Dev), but I did not have the physique for that. Someone told me that I should become a spinner. To be honest, I did not even know what spin bowling was at the time. But once someone said it, the idea stayed in my mind, and I started trying to spin the ball a little. I did not even know how to hold the ball properly. Gursharan, who still lives in my neighbourhood, was the one who advised me… so thank you, Gucchi Paaji, for that advice. I also wish I had taken batting a little more seriously at the international level. When I came into cricket, I could hit the ball well, but I was often in too much of a hurry. If I had shown a little more patience, I could have scored twice as many runs.”