Sanjay Manjrekar jumps into Harbhjahn-Ashwin row!! 1

The former Indian batsman and current cricket commentator and expert, Sanjay Manjrekar, has also jumped into the debate of comparison between Harbhajan Singh and R. Ashwin. From past few days, Harbhajan Singh has been firing few shots at R. Ashwin questioning him of taking the assistance of the pitch and failing to get wickets on unsupportive pitches.

This matter soon became a highly debated topic in the cricketing circle but Captain Virat Kohli had a perfect reply to it as he said “Even if it is a turning pitch, you have to bowl well. Spin is just not something to happen only off the pitch. It depends on how many revs (revolutions) you give to the ball and the use of the shoulder. When we lost to New Zealand in the World Cup, I quite clearly remember, suddenly their spinners were quality bowlers and we were found out! I don’t see anyone talking about it now, the same (New Zealand) spinners had played (in this series). Why did not they pick up wickets? It’s as simple as that. Our fast bowlers (also) picked up wickets everywhere. Give a guy a cement track to bat on. He should have a mindset to do so. It’s as simple as that. That’s all I am going, to sum up.”

Now, Sanjay Manjrekar has also jumped into this debate through a tweet to ensure that matter remains a hot debate for few more days as he tweeted


Though Manjrekar has mentioned that he assumes both Bhajji and Ashwin as top class spinners but he has rated Ashwin ahead of Harbhajan citing Ashwin’s ability to have much more variations than Bhajji. Through this, he clearly means to say that Bhajji do not have many variations and it is Ashwin who have an upper hand in this regard as according to him Ashwin keeps his wicket column ticking by making variations whilst bowling.

Yes, Sanjay Manjrekar has a point as practically it is true that Ashwin has more variations than Harbhajan Singh but he should not forget that Bhajji started to play in an era when there were no T20’s whereas Ashwin had a taste of T20 before even making it to the Indian team. To grow and survive in T20 era, one needs to apply each and every technique and even invent something new whereas in Test cricket bowler usually relies on the traditional way of cricket. Though with time, bowling in Test cricket have also seen a drastic change but still Test cricket remains a traditional format in which we hardly see any player making a change in his playing style or technique. Even a batsman like AB De Villiers, despite having shown his 360-degree approach in T20’s will never experiment the same in Test cricket.

In Test cricket, Bhajji usually relies on his off spin and Doosra whereas Ashwin with time has experimented carom ball or a pure leg spin looking like delivery. He even went to change his action trying to imitate Sunil Narine but returned to his previous action soon. Yes, it is true that Ashwin has some more variations but this can’t be a reason for calling Ashwin superior than Bhajji.

Well, HarbhajanSingh is yet to send a reply to Sanjay Manjrekar and we may see a good explanation from him soon.