Saqlain Mushtaq backs Harbhajan Singh’s recall

Former Pakistan spinner, Saqlain Mushtaq has put his weight behind Harbhajan Singh, and said that too much focus on Twenty20 cricket is affecting Indian off-spinner’s international career.

Harbhajan has been out of favour since India’s humiliating 4-0 loss in England. Saqlain feels that Bhajji has been going through a lean-patch, and will come out of it quickly.

Backing the Indian off-spinner to get his form back, the veteran asked selectors to keep Harbhajan overall stats in mind before making a decision on his career.

"I think at the moment, the main issue for him is too much focus on Twenty20 cricket and secondly after all he is a human being  he can’t do well all of the time and you will have your ups and downs and we should accept that," Saqlain told pakpassion.net.

"But, I think the media was after him when he was in England, but if you look at the pitches and conditions, they were more suitable for the fast bowlers. Graeme Swann was not even bowling that much, he was bowling 4-5 overs in one innings! All the fast
bowlers were taking wickets. From India, Zaheer Khan got injured and Ishant Sharma was not bowling that well," added the inventor of Doosra.

Team Blue has been performing terribly on overseas tours. After suffering an embarrassing whitewash loss to England, the Men in Blue replicated their dismal show in Australia, and tasted another clean-sweep defeat.

The Indians were expected to make a strong comeback in the limited-over leg of the tour. However, they failed to do so, and displayed an ordinary show in the first T20, tasting a bitter 31-run loss.

Saqlain elucidated that the Indian side failed as a unit in England and therefore, only Harbhajan cannot be held responsible.

"I think before that series, Harbhajan was having a bit of bad form, but they kept blaming him, that was wrong I think. This added more pressure on Harbhajan. The critics were not talking about the fast bowlers or the batsmen. The batsmen were not performing
well, but they were blaming Harbhajan Singh and put him under pressure," he pointed out.

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Posted by Rana Nasir Ghafoor on Feb 3 2012. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry