Harbhajan needs to be patient

He was up in the clouds in March. Today, he has been brought down to earth with a thud. Over the past two months, Harbhajan Singh has no doubt learnt some home truths about Test cricket. It is not always easy to take wickets, especially in contests away from home and there is still so much to learn in the tough, hard world of Test cricket.

No one in his right mind would have expected the 21-year-old off-spinner from Punjab to repeat his feat of taking 32 wickets in three Tests against the Australians just a few months ago in the Tests in Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka. But even granting this, there is no doubt that his showing in the five Tests was below par. In a way it is good that he played opposite Muthiah Muralitharan. For the series in Sri Lanka showed that Harbhajan, for all his manifold talents and undoubted promise, has a lot of work to do before he could hope to match the deeds of the more famous Sri Lankan bowler who purveys the same trade.

The most telling difference is seen in the series statistics. For, while figures do not always put things in the proper perspective they do in this particular case. Murali finished the series with 23 wickets at 19.30 apiece at a strike rate of 46.3. Harbhajan had four wickets at 73 apiece at a strike rate of 147. Even after taking into account the fact that the Sri Lankan batsmen showed greater purpose in tackling the turning ball, the difference is too stark to be just shrugged off. In Zimbabwe, in two Tests, Harbhajan had eight wickets at an average of 29.12 and a strike rate of 77.7. Not the kind of figures that one expected him to finish with against a side which is only one of two nations below India in the current Test rankings.

Young, ambitious and aggressive by nature, Harbhajan has a lot of things going for him. All the same, qualities like patience, skill and the ability to think a batsman out are also required to make it to the top. One distinctly got the impression that buoyed by his spectacular success against the Australians, Harbhajan expected to take a wicket with almost every ball. Now that kind of scenario is written only in dreams or by film script writers. In real life, the scene is very different. The bowler must not be in awe of his main opponent, the batsman, but must have a healthy respect for him. He is also thinking of ways and means to combat the bowler. Which in turn means that the bowler must think of new methods to get the better of the batsmen. This calls for the twin qualities of skill and patience.

For an example of this, let's go back to Bombay, November, 1969 and the first Test between India and Australia. On the second day, Bill Lawry and Erapalli Prasanna were involved in an engrossing duel for supremacy. The Australian captain, a master at the waiting game, and well known for his obduracy and his defence, repeatedly played Prasanna's off breaks with the turn (leg breaks to him) to cover or extra cover. Prasanna kept feeding him, even conceding a few runs in the process. This turned out to be a smart investment. For, suddenly the Indian off spinner, then at the peak of his powers, sent one straight through. Lawry, for all his skill and experience could not see it coming. He was again committed to the push on the off side, a stroke he had essayed expertly for some time. But this particular delivery did not turn, held its course, beat the bat and clipped the bails. The entry in the scorecard simply reads Lawry b Prasanna 25. It cannot tell the tale of the scholarly manner in which Prasanna effected that dismissal.

Prasanna of course was a master at thinking the batsmen out and it is this important aspect of a bowler's armoury that Harbhajan, for all his gifts, will have to learn if he wishes to emulate the deeds of his predecessors. In both Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka, he seemed tense and as the batsmen played him with increasing confidence and his strike rate increased, he seemed to lose his confidence. Which is a pity for Harbhajan has it in him to join the list of Indian bowling greats. He has to come to terms with the fact that he will not always be bowling at home, in familiar conditions or on pitches helping spin bowlers or against opponents susceptible to the ball breaking in from the off. By temperament, he is tough, by approach he is aggressive and by nature he is an attacking bowler. All he needs is a little more skill and patience, the ability to think the batsmen out, to probe their weaknesses and ruthlessly exploit it. He has to accept the fact that he will not pick up 32 wickets in three Tests every time, that wickets have to be earned and will not be gifted and that he will have to work harder for them. That will be when he would have taken his first step towards greatness.