The Hindu : Sport : A fitting reward for Harbhajan

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 29, 2006

Sport

Sport

A fitting reward for Harbhajan

NEW DELHI: The relief on his face said it all as Harbhajan Singh met the media at the end of one of the most important days of his cricketing career.

A career-best spell in one-day internationals was a fitting reward for the off-spinner's fine spell this afternoon at the Ferozeshah Kotla.

"I would like to thank the people (captain, coach, team) who have supported me through tough times. I wanted to bowl in the right area and stick to a good line. I did not try anything different. I just wanted to bowl as well as I have been doing. I knew at some stage the results would come."

He acknowledged that the bowling from the other end was good too. "It was nice to see Yuvraj taking that responsibility and bowling so well. He helped me take wickets by keeping his end tight," said a beamng Harbhajan.

On his batting, Harbhajan noted, "I had played a very bad shot in the last Test. I just wanted to bat well here. I had to bat with Dhoni at that stage. I was told to rotate strike, and not play shots, look to play straight. I am happy with the way I batted today."

He said, "it does help with your confidence if you do well in one form. Lower order has been working hard on batting. We would like to keep improving."

Skipper Rahul Dravid observed , "We need to get better but we are a young side and finding our feet".

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