Harbhajan Singh is one of the greatest spinners in the world. He is proud of the Indian Cricket team. He is a spinner-batsman and is playing for so many years in the Indian cricket team. He has played so many matches and had made the Indian team win with his skills.
People love him, and his fan following is massive, not only in India but in other countries also. His cricket career started in 1997 in Punjab’s cricket team, and later on, he was selected in the Indian team.
Harbhajan Singh Plawa is his full name. He is also called Bhajji by his friends, family and his teammates. He was mainly selected in the nation for his bowling skills. He has played so many matches outside the country as well and has taken the country’s pride to the clouds. Let’s discuss him in brief.
How his career started
Harbhajan Singh is the only boy among his siblings. He is from a Sikh family and has five more sisters. His family had never thought about sending him to cricket; they have decided to take him to the family business.
But, later on, his father insisted him to continue in cricket and make his career in it. BHajji was trained as a batsman first, and his first coach was Charanjit Singh Bhullar.
After his coach’s death, he got a new coach with whom he had a training session of 3 hours per day. That coach has found the hidden talent of bowling in him and insisted him to start bowl.
Personal life
After his father’s death in the year 2000, Bhajji alone has to handle his family and is responsible for all of his sister’s marriage. He managed to organize the marriage of his three sisters till 2001. In 2002 he decided to organize his marriage also, and until 2008 he was waiting for the right girl to come into his life.
In 2005, the rumours started spreading about him of marriage to a Bangalore-based girl, but he wants his career in cricket first, and then he wants to marry that girl.
With his great success in cricket, he was awarded so many awards by the Indian government, and the Punjab government has separately given him so many awards in his honour and also gave him a cash prize worth Rs.5 lakhs.
Bhajji is called ‘The Turbanator’ in international boundaries. This is because of his bowling skills and for terminating other bowlers and batsman with his excellent bowling. Plus, he is a man with a turban, which gives him this name.
Bhajji was the most popular player after Sachin Tendulkar in 2005. He also has offered so many commercials and other things from Bollywood, and because of his colourful turbans in the matches and other places, it made him more famous.
Career: International and Domestic
Domestic
- He started playing cricket at the age of 15, in the year 1995-1996. His first match was against Haryana, as he started from the state level championship. He won in that match with all the nine wickets. His next match was with Delhi, in which he scored 56 runs alone. He started playing so many matches on the state level and was growing in the game.
- After the successful playing of one year, he was promoted to the under 19 team of Punjab. He won three 20-20 matches consecutively and took 15 wickets. He played several matches in the under 19 teams but managed only to make two runs in a match.
- After all this struggle, he played his first Ranji Trophy in 1997-98, and after that, he was selected to play in the under-19 world cup in January 1998. He took entry into the Indian cricket team in the 2009 Indian Premier League, and after that, he started playing in the national team with all the popular players who gave a hike to his cricket career.
International
- After the Ranji Trophy, Bhajji was selected for an Australian tour in 1999-2001. His debut tour was not so good as he was the second spinner in the team, and he was left behind in the stands for the test matches. Indian lost those matches. Bhajji got a chance to play in the team in Tasmania.
- In the year 2000, he came in the playing twelve as everyone was got aware of his skills and he started going with the National Team for the international matches. He also had played so many world cups for India and has shown a great performance.
Summing up, Harbhajan Singh was found to be a legend in the history of cricket. He had done so much of struggle and also have managed to take the responsibility of his family alone.