The best of spinners have carried on in their late 30s. Saeed Ajmal, for example, is 37. Even the likes of Anil Kumble, Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan carried till late into their 30s. Harbhajan, a veteran of 101 Tests in which he has taken 413 wickets, will turn 34 in just over a month’s time. The murmurs about his inclusion after a two-year hiatus, has got nothing to do with his age.
The best of spinners have carried on in their late 30s. Saeed Ajmal, for example, is 37. Even the likes of Anil Kumble, Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan carried till late into their 30s. Harbhajan, a veteran of 101 Tests in which he has taken 413 wickets, will turn 34 in just over a month’s time. The murmurs about his inclusion after a two-year hiatus, has got nothing to do with his age.
Sandeep Patil, the chairman of selectors, said: “The Bangladesh batting order has six left-handers. Keeping that in mind, we discussed with the captain and we felt it was necessary to have a second off-spinner [Ravichandran Ashwin being the first]. I also want to point out we not only discussed Harbhajan, but we also discussed other youngsters and considered them. Ultimately the selection committee and the captain felt this [Harbhajan] was the right choice for this particular tour.”
With six left-handers, it makes sense to have another off-spinner apart from Ashwin. But the question is: Why Harbhajan? He has done well for Mumbai Indians (MI) in the Indian Premier League (IPL), but then again if Twenty20 (T20) becomes the yardstick for choosing a Test squad then Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra have reasons to be aggrieved at being left out. Zaheer’s dexterity against left-hand batsmen are well known.
Harbhajan below numbers in the 2014-15 season does no good to him:
Format M Runs Wkts Avg BBI
First-Class 3 255 6 42.5 3-51
List A 9 385 8 48.1 3-38
However, he has impressed in the shortest format where he has picked up 21 wickets (including the IPL 2015). It would have made sense had he been selected for One-Day Internationals (ODIs). Harbhajan’s surprise inclusion means either IPL is the parameter for Test selection or there is a dearth of quality off-spinners in Indian domestic cricket.
Speaking of off-spinners, Assam’s Swarupam Purkayastha tops the list who have done well this season. The 25-year old has picked up 36 wickets from seven games at an average of 17.52. Playing for Assam, he didn’t get to play against the best of oppositions in Group C and he went wicketless in the quarter-final against the strong Karnataka side. Tamil Nadu’s Malolan Rangarajan and Haryana’s Jayant Yadav have done well too. Their sides have played in the Group A and Group B respectively. Rangarajan, 26, picked up 36 wickets at 28.75, while the 25-year old Jayant picked up 33 wickets at 18.57. Jayant was picked for Delhi Daredevils and showed promise in his limited outings.
The young cricketers mentioned above are inexperienced, but a Bangladesh tour would have given them the much-needed exposure at the top level. It would have been a step forward. Patil rightly emphasised on Bangladesh’s recent rise as he said, “they can’t be taken lightly.”
True, they did exceptionally well against Pakistan, but they are still ranked ninth in Test cricket. And if one has to take a chance, what better opposition than Bangladesh? It’s clear that selectors don’t have enough faith in the upcoming crop and therefore went for experience. It’s one step backward for Indian cricket.
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