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Bhajji: The 40-year-old Version
IPL 2021: Harbhajan Singh has been playing for India/IPL longer than his KKR mate and latest Test sensation Shubman Gill has been alive.
When the match resumed at the halfway mark and the Kolkata Knight Riders huddle dispersed, it was Harbhajan Singh who handed his cap to the umpire – making him the first 40-year-old to play a role in this season of the IPL (Chennai Super Kings’s Imran Tahir, a year older than Bhajji and the oldest player in any of the squads for this edition, didn’t play his team’s opening game).
But it wasn’t just his age or his employment with the new ball that were raising eyebrows; the great off-spinner was perhaps aware that, as he stood at the top of his bowling mark, every keen viewer tuned into Sunday night’s game was conscious of the fact that he hadn’t bowled a ball of relevance in nearly 700 days.
Bhajji later admitted to feeling the rust too. Rust and a whole lot of nerves. "It did feel like my first game only. There was nervousness so I had to relax myself and bowl the way I bowled all these years," he would say a day later. "People sometimes look at you and think that you are 40 and can't play. But if you are fit enough you don't need to look at it that way."
Sure, but still doesn't change the fact that between the last game of the 2019 IPL, which Harbhajan played and lost with CSK to his long-time franchise Mumbai Indians, and the third game of this season, he did not play a single competitive match. Not for his state side of Punjab in any of the domestic competitions and not even for CSK in 2020, pulling out of the UAE edition at the last minute due to “personal reasons”.
CSK dropped him before the next auction, Bhajji announced that his base price was a ridiculous ₹2 crore and none of the teams touched him with a barge pole when he went under the auctioneer’s gavel in the first round and many presumed that that was that – the end of an incredibly long and fruitful road for Harbhajan Singh. But in round two of that auction, the wise women and men around KKR’s table decided he could still play a hand and brought him on board for his base price.
And there he found himself on his team’s opening night, tossing a new ball between his palms and waiting to bowl at Sunrisers Hyderabad opener Wriddhiman Saha. But in reality, it was SRH’s non-striker and captain David Warner that he perhaps itched to bowl at, having previously dismissed the greatest foreign batsman in the toughest T20 league on four occasions.
His first competitive ball in two years was a dot ball – a flighted ball that drifted in the air towards Saha, who worked it off his pads straight to the square leg fielder. Perhaps Saha too was amazed at just how much Bhajji’s glorious action had changed. The loopy flourish was wholly gone; the load-up was now curt and strictly for business. But again, a gentle reminder that Harbhajan has been playing for India/IPL longer than his KKR mate and latest Test sensation Shubman Gill has been alive.
Before we proceed with the rest of the over, a quick nod to Harbhajan’s longevity. Not only is his KKR coach Brendon McCullum a year and a bit younger than him, VVS Laxman – the man Bhajji will always be joined at the hip with, thanks to 2001 – has been a mentor in the opposite dressing room for 10 years now. But a better yardstick to judge his incredible durability will be by noting what the other boys backed by captain Sourav Ganguly (at the turn of the century) are now doing. Zaheer Khan is a bowling coach at Mumbai Indians; Virender Sehwag retired from the IPL in 2015; Gautam Gambhir, a year younger than Bhajji, calls the Lok Sabha his office.
Also joined at the hip are Bhajji and the 2001 series, where he picked up 32 wickets against the mightiest Australians. Here’s another telling reason why: after that first ball, Harbhajan had now represented all three venues from that Test series he is most remembered for – first Mumbai, now Kolkata and also Chennai.
The second ball was a dot ball too, this time Saha struggled to get it past the inner circle on the off side. But when he finally took a single next ball, Warner came on strike and with the certainty of a rising sun, Bhajji struck. Nearly. The very first ball to the great Australian was miscued towards cover, only to be spilled by his compatriot Pat Cummins. Bhajji scratched his nose and walked back to his mark, perhaps without a clue at this point of time that the last ball of the over would be smashed for a six by Saha or that that would be his final contribution to his team’s win (captain Eoin Morgan didn't bring him on again).
It remains to be seen if Harbhajan will get a go once KKR’s long time off spinner in Sunil Narine starts playing. But to still be relevant enough to command ₹2 crore in the year he will turn 41 and be trusted enough to bowl the first over of an IPL team’s campaign at an age when his contemporaries are all either pundits or politicians is already a most remarkable feat.
But it wasn’t just his age or his employment with the new ball that were raising eyebrows; the great off-spinner was perhaps aware that, as he stood at the top of his bowling mark, every keen viewer tuned into Sunday night’s game was conscious of the fact that he hadn’t bowled a ball of relevance in nearly 700 days.
