Harbhajan Singh one of the two hardest bowlers I faced, reckons Adam Gilchrist
Legendary Australian cricketer Adam Gilchrist has revealed that Harbhajan Singh is one of the toughest he played as he compared him to Muttiah Muralitharan. Gilchrist also revealed that the 2001 Australia tour of India led to drastic strategic changes in the game plan of the Aussies.
Former Australia wicket keeper Adam Gilchrist has gone on to reveal that off spinner Harbhajan Singh was more or less a nemesis to him as he even went on to compare him with spin maestro Muttiah Muralitharan. He recalled the famous 2001 Test series in India where Harbhajan wreaked havoc in the Australia line up.
Talking to Cricket Australia's The Unplayable Podcast, where Gilchrist was reflecting upon his glorious career, he shared how important the 2001 Australia tour of the India in shaping the cricketing style of the former. Gilchrist was the hero in the first Test match of the series as he brought up a fighting century to extend the unbeaten run of Australia in Test cricket to 16 matches.
“We were five for 99, I went in there, got a hundred off 80 balls, we won in three days and I just thought, ‘What have these blokes been doing for 30 years. How easy’s this?' And how wrong I was. We’ve only got to fast forward to the next Test match and I came back to reality,” Sportstar quoted Gilchrist saying so on the podcast.
But what unfolded there after wasn't expected by anyone, not even by the Indian team. Harbhajan went on to scalp 32 wickets in the three match series as he also went on to bag the first hattrick by an Indian in Test cricket to help India seal the series and break Australia's 16 match unbeaten run in the format. His heroics earned him the man of the series award.
“As it would turn out, by the end of that series we probably needed to learn how to put a handbrake on just to get a holding pattern, rather than ‘attack, attack, attack’ because it doesn’t always work — Harbhajan bamboozled us. He was a bit of a nemesis for me right throughout my career. I found him and Murali probably the two hardest bowlers to face,” he added.
The 47 year old also went on to explain the repercussions the 2-1 series thumping had on the way Australia approached Test cricket as the Kangaroos went from all out attack to defence in the longest format of the game.
“We changed our tactics a great deal. In 2001 what we learnt was we can’t just attack our way out of every situation,” said Gilchrist.
“We had to learn to swallow our ego and go defensive, and that was very much part of the whole collective mindset of the group; (for example) the bowlers had to take a step back and run in with the new ball with one slip and a sweeper on the leg side.”
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