Harbhajan Singh: Return of the native

As the Indian team trooped in for practice at the now out-of-favour Sector 16 Stadium here on Tuesday afternoon, there was a familiar feel about it for one player. The way Harbhajan Singh walked around the arena, it appeared as if he knew every blade of grass here.

The scent of the dressing room walls took him back more than 17 years in time. It was here that he had spent all his teenage years learning the art of off-spin. “This dressing room was his home for four years. He seemed to be cherishing being here,” Sector 16 Stadium coach Harish Sharma told DNA. “Just as he entered, he enquired, ‘Is my room the same?’. And I joked, ‘Yes, your bed is also there’,” said Sharma, who has been coaching at this centre since 1989.

“He was in Std VIII when he came here as a 13-year-old in 1993-94 to join the residential BCCI bowling academy run as a joint venture with the Sport Authority of India. The dormitory where the bowlers stayed has now been converted into dressing rooms,” revealed the former Himachal Pradesh Ranji Trophy player.

The BCCI academy and the local administration’s coaching centre ran parallel at this Chandigarh stadium. But since the bowler’s academy had a handful of boys, and quite often most of them would be playing tournaments elsewhere, the younger ones like Harbhajan would then bowl at the coaching centre’s nets where a lot of Ranji players trained. It is here that Sharma developed a strong bond with Harbhajan.

That the star player still has high regards for the coach could be seen in the way he greeted and gelled with Sharma.

Going into the first Test against Australia on October 1, the spotlight has been on Harbhajan’s fitness and form. Sharma provided a good insight into it. “Thoda dheela tha kal (He was a bit out of sorts when he started on Monday). I asked him if he was alright. He said he had a slight pain in the shin but it was getting better and he would be fine in a couple of days,” said Sharma.

Harbhajan had trained alone at the Sector 16 Stadium after the final day’s play of the tour game between Board President’s XI and Australia. “He started with bowling against three stumps and his direction was wayward. I asked him to bowl at one stump. Off the nine balls, he hit the stump four times and he looked confident. He got back his rhythm too. We then put a marker at the spot he needed to target and he bowled better. For a top player like him, it doesn’t take much time to find rhythm.

“He bowled first up in practice and there was an interesting duel between him and (Virender) Sehwag. The batsman hit him for a six right at the beginning. And typical of his Punjabi attitude, one could sense Harbhajan did not like it. He had Sehwag clean bowled and celebrated it by pumping his fists. It proved he is in good rhythm and mental frame,” Sharma said.

Harbhajan strained every sinew on Tuesday. Apart from bowling for around 40 minutes, he batted more than half-an-hour and then honed his fielding skills for a long time.

Sharma is confident Harbhajan will play the first Test? “Ninety-nine per cent he will play. Woh kabhi himmat nahin harta hai (he never loses hope),” Sharma said.