Former India off-spinner Harbhajan Singh believes if he got the backing of BCCI, his career would have blossomed more. The 41-year old recently announced his retirement from all forms of cricket. In an interview with Zee News, Harbhajan said if he was backed well, he would have added another 100-150 Test wickets to his name.
“Luck has always favoured me. Just some external factors were not by my side and maybe they were completely against me. This is because of the way I was bowling or the rate at which I was moving ahead. I was 31 when I took 400 wickets and if I would have played another 4-5 years, keeping in mind the kind of standards I had set for myself, I can tell you that I would have taken another 100-150 wickets or more,” Harbhajan said in an interview with Zee News.
Harbhajan was an integral part of the Indian team in all 3 formats until he had to leave the England tour midway due to an injury in 2011. Since then the selectors moved on from him though he did get odd games here and there.
The former off-spinner believes that Dhoni might have supported the decision (to drop him) but ultimately it’s the selectors’ call.
“Yes, MS Dhoni was the captain then but I think this thing was above Dhoni’s head. To a certain extent, there were some BCCI officials who were involved in this and they didn’t want me and the captain may have supported that, but a captain can never be above the BCCI. The BCCI officials have always been bigger than the captain, coach or the team,” he said.
The 41-year also pointed out that Dhoni had got better backing in the last stage of his career as opposed to his seniors like Laxman, Dravid, Sehwag, and many others.
“Dhoni had better backing than other players; and if the rest of the players would have got the same kind of backing, then they would have played as well. It wasn’t as if the rest of the players forgot to swing a bat or didn’t know how to bowl all of a sudden. The big names like VVS (Laxman), Rahul (Dravid), Viru (Virender Sehwag), and many others who took retirement later didn’t get the chance,” he pointed out.
Harbhajan played his last game for India in an Asia Cup match in 2016 while the last time he represented India in red-ball cricket was way back in 2015. He finished his career with 711 wickets in international cricket which includes 417 Test wickets.
He also showed his desire to have a biopic made on his journey.
“I would like a film or a web series made on my life so that people can also know my side of the story, what kind of a guy I am, and what I do. Can’t say who would be the villain!” he said.