Indian cricketer Harbhajan Singh recalled the Kolkata Test match win in 2001 against Australia, where he was the highest wicket-taker for the team and also registered a hat-trick. Talking with the off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin in the live session, he said that Australian’s could not swallow their defeat in the series and are always crying for giving a wrong lbw decision by the umpire.
Harbhajan Singh picked 13 wickets:
At Eden Gardens, the Test match was in favour of Australians but Harbhajan’s masterstroke changed the fortune for India. He registered a hat-trick in the first innings which included the wickets of Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist and Shane Warne. In the second innings, he picked up six wickets and dismantled the batting line up of the visitors. In total, he notched up 13 wickets in that most memorable Test win for India.
Although it has been 19 years since that Test victory, many Australian players who were in the 2001 Test series had argued the umpire’s decision of giving Gilchrist lbw after which Harbhajan went on to register the hat-trick. Gilchrist himself had said that if there was the DRS system, he might not be given out.
Harbhajan’s reactions:
Speaking to Ashwin, he expressed that Australians should not debate the decision because it was in the past. As per him, they can not handle the defeat in a Test match which makes them bad losers.
“It was straight in line, it was going to spin as well. I think if I see that now… with DRS, it would have hit the stumps for sure. But that’s McGrath for you. Australians are… they produced a lot of great players but are very bad losers. When it comes to losing a match from that situation… where they were, it must have given them a hard, hard time,” Harbhajan Singh told R Ashwin.
“That’s Australia for you. When they bowl, they feel everything is out. When they are facing it, they feel they are not out. They were not really happy about most of the decision. But this is how the game goes. We may talk about 2008, the Sydney Test, we had a lot of things that went not in our favour. A lot of people talk about that Test as well.
“These things happen in the field. We have to accept it as a player. We don’t need to keep on crying about it. We now see some people say on Twitter that Gilchrist was not out. So what if he was not out? How many times have I got him out? If not the 1st ball, I could have got him out in the 2nd ball.”
India won that match by 171 runs despite being forced for a follow on. The former cricketers VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid build up a lead of 384 in the second innings which was very well defended by India.