India off-spinner Harbhajan Singh has had a fruitful career for India which started way back in 1998 and has seen him playing 103 Tests and 236 ODIs, along with 28 T20I matches. He has 417, 269, and 25 wickets respectively, and has many accolades to his name as well.
He has been part of the Indian team which won the 2007 ICC T20 World Cup and 2011 ICC World Cup, apart from being the hero for the team when Australia came calling in 2001 with an unbeaten run of 15 Tests behind them.
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Australia beat India in the first Test of that epic series in 2001 in Mumbai and had the home side on the ropes in the second match in Kolkata as well until VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid with the bat and Harbhajan Singh with the ball turned things around.
While Laxman (281) and Dravid (180) famously added 376 runs when India was asked to follow-on, Harbhajan picked the first-ever hat-trick by an Indian in Tests in that match and made Australian batsmen sweat it out in the middle.
He continued to haunt the Aussies in the third and final Test in Chennai as well, helping India pull off a magical 2-1 series win under the leadership of Sourav Ganguly.
The ‘turbanator’ as he is affectionately called, Harbhajan played his role in India’s 2011 World Cup win as well, picking 9 wickets in as many matches.
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When asked to pick which was the best moments of his cricketing career on the YouTube show with Aakash Chopra, Harbhajan said, “As a player, I will rate 2001 series against Australia at the top spot as it made me the player I am today, if I look at my childhood dream, I always wanted to win the World Cup and it came true in 2011 so I will keep it at par with the 2001 series.”
Victory in the 2007 WT20 is another achievement that is special for the spinner.
“Winning the T20 World Cup in 2007 was unbelievable when we landed back in India, we got a huge amount of support, I have never seen anything like that before, I would not be able to rate these three moments as all are very special to me,” he added.
Here is the video:
