Out of contention in the Indian team, Harbhajan Singh has been quite active on social media lately, much like the rest of the cricketers amidst lockdown.
During a recent interaction, Harbhajan was asked to choose the greatest match-winner produced by India. There, he went ahead with Anil Kumble, above the likes of MS Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly.
Both Kumble and Harbhajan shared the spin attack for the country for a number of years in both ODI and Test cricket.
Kumble, the leading wicket-taker for India, has 956 internationals scalps to his name, cumulatively. However, his most significant performance came against Pakistan in 1999, where he went on to pick all ten wickets in the second innings.
The Karnataka stalwart had the uncanny ability to run through batting lineups on his own with his flippers, googlies, and the faster ones.
“In my view, Anil bhai was the greatest ever who played for India. He’s probably the greatest match-winner India has ever produced. People used to say he didn’t spin the ball, but he showed that if you had the heart, you could get batsmen out regardless of whether the ball spun or not,” Harbhajan told Sportstar.
Furthermore, ‘Jumbo’ turned out to be one of the stellar leaders for India, who had some challenging tasks as a captain, namely, coping with the “Monkey gate’ during the infamous 2008 Sydney Test.
India went on to display tremendous character, coming back from the loss, and winning the subsequent Perth Test match, under the leadership of Anil Kumble.
“If anyone has half the competitiveness Anil Bhai had, he would become a champion. I’m lucky to have played with him for so many years. He was an unbelievably committed player,” concluded Bhajji.
