Off-spinner Harbhajan Singh made another controversial statement after his call to bid adieu from international cricket. The veteran tweaker said the great MS Dhoni received preferential treatment and more backing than some of India’s other veteran cricketers, including him, from the decision-makers within the BCCI.
Harbhajan claimed Dhoni enjoyed more support and backing from the selectors and the BCCI office-bearers. He feels if the same level of support was shown to other cricketers who fell by the wayside after poor performances, they could’ve also gone on to become great cricketers.
“Dhoni had better backing than other players and if the rest of the players would have got the same kind of backing, then they would have played as well.
It wasn’t as if the rest of the players forgot to swing a bat or didn’t know how to bowl all of a sudden,”
he was quoted as saying from interaction with Zee News.
Harbhajan is presumably referring to the time around 2012-13 when under Dhoni’s captaincy, India began moving past experienced but long-struggling cricketers such as him, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh among others.
Before being dropped from the Test side in November 2011, Harbhajan had been averaging a poor 34.66 since the start of 2008 over 66 innings with 155 wickets. Harbhajan was recalled in 2012 and 2015 for a further five Tests for India but he could never really cement his place back.
The 41-year-old cricketer, however, reckons he wasn’t backed enough a decade back as he believes he could’ve taken another 100-150 more wickets in Test cricket.
Harbhajan also said it isn’t that Dhoni was behind his sacking, he feels it was the lack of support from BCCI functionaries that led to his early departure from the scene.
“Yes. MS Dhoni was the captain then but I think this [selection] thing was above Dhoni’s head. To a certain extent, there were some BCCI officials who were involved in this and they didn’t want me,”
he added.
Harbhajan called it quits in December after 103 Tests, 236 ODIs and 28 T20Is for India.
