Harvinder Singh: I had no one to guide me during India stint

It was business as usual for Railways coach Harvinder Singh on a cold and gloomy day in the national capital. While the players remained inside the dressing room and sipped hot tea, their hands wrapped in woolen gloves, Harvinder was busy completing his set of five rounds of the Karnail Singh Stadium. At 37, he is as fit as many of the current Railways cricketers and still capable of giving a 25-year-old a run for his money.

It was roughly 20 days before the start of the 2014-15 domestic season that Harvinder was assigned the Railways' coaching job. It's the same side he dedicated 13 years of his playing life to. Hence, when approached, he gladly accepted the offer. "Whatever I am today is solely due to cricket. So when I retired, I always had this thought in my mind that I have to give something back to cricket and in particular, Railways. Hence, I took up the role," Harvinder tells Cricbuzz.

While 31 may be too young an age to retire, Harvinder has no regrets about his decision. When he played his final match for Railways, it had already been seven years since he last represented India and the rise of Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra had put paid to his chances. Also, Harvinder was starting to lose ground in terms of performance - his previous two seasons had accounted for 34 wickets combined - and the emergence of Anureet Singh got him to make up his mind.

"I wasn't enjoying my bowling to be honest. I had realised that I won't get to play at the highest level again. I didn't have many wickets to show either as the last two years had been comparatively dull," recalls Harvinder. "Anureet had debuted that season and had done relatively well in one particular game, but in the next match, he was benched despite picking up wickets and I was given a go. I felt that it was unfair to have not played him just because an experienced campaigner like me was in the side. So I decided to step back."

Harvinder's rise to fame was the 1997 Sahara Cup in Toronto, where India and Pakistan met for a six-match ODI series. Back in the day, Pakistan, more often than not, would emerge victorious over India. However, Harvinder's heroics and his camaraderie with fellow debutant Debasis Mohanty gave India a thumping 4-1 win. The pair combined for 17 wickets in the series as they spearheaded the Indian attack in the absence of the injured Javagal Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad.

"[Sachin] Tendulkar was our hero in the 90s and as it turned out, he was India's captain in that series. So getting my cap from him is something I will cherish for the rest of my life," Harvinder recalled. "The first time I saw him was in the bus when we were on our way to the hotel from the airport. I had to touch him to actually believe that he was sitting within an arm's reach.

"Shahid Afridi and Saeed Anwar were the two biggest batsmen in the Pakistan camp back then. The night before I was told by Sachin that I would play all five matches, I could not sleep thinking that I would be bowling to Afridi and Anwar. But as fate would have it, Afridi turned out to be my first international wicket."

Before Harvinder could emerge as India's third seam bowling option, a back injury limited his international career to just 17 ODIs and three Tests. His first stint lasted just four months - the third match against Australia during the 1998 Border-Gavaskar Trophy being his penultimate Test. He later featured in India's squad for the tri-series in West Indies and South Africa in 2001 but got to play only three matches. While Ajit Agarkar was the only medium-pacer from that era to have lasted the distance, Harvinder joined the likes of Abey Kuruvilla and Doda Ganesh in India's long list of also-rans.

"I was given many chances. I believe if someone has to prove his mettle, all he requires is four-five games. I featured in 17 one-day internationals, so if I couldn't make it big even after that, it means I wasn't suited at that level," Harvinder says. "The fact that I had no one to guide me is perhaps what cut short my career; there was no NCA at that time either. Every time something went wrong, I would either replay the videos or go back and bowl non-stop in the nets. In fact, that is what further aggravated the injury."

Harvinder grew up in Shehrata, which was earlier a village before becoming a part of Amritsar. Born in a middle-class family, Harry, as he is fondly known, began his tryst with cricket after an advice from a dear friend, who then took him to the main city for coaching. He admits to have had an obsession for fitness and the desire to participate in the Ranji Trophy tournament.

"When I used to play, my friend noticed that I generated a lot of speed, more than all the others. He took me to the main city of Amritsar where I took coaching," recalls Harvinder. "I used to have a craze for fitness, something that allowed me to realise my dream of playing a Ranji Trophy match in 1995."

Reflecting his views on the current state of fitness of fast bowlers in India, the former medium-pacer said the fact that they don't bowl longer spells is what makes them more prone to injury."The current fast bowlers have this trend of bowling shorter spells. Till the time they don't sweat it out in the nets, the bowling muscles won't get the capacity to deliver," asserts Harvinder.

At the time of him joining Railways, the team was considered pushovers. As a matter of fact, no one wanted to join them. But soon that notion was put to rest and Harvinder, along with players such Amit Pagnis, JP Yadav, Raja Ali Hasan, Santosh Sahu and TP Singh took the side to back-to-back Ranji Trophy finals against the same opposition Baroda, in the 2000-2001 and 2001-02 seasons.

"The first final against Baroda was heart-breaking. We lost the game after dominating for four days. We had a lead of 250 runs but despite that, we emerged second-best after a collapse on the final day," Harvinder recalls. "However, the next year, we won the trophy inside three days. I don't know whether it was written or anything of that sort, but that win was sweeter than any other I've ever experienced."