The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Hard work pays off: Harbhajan

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Hard work pays off: Harbhajan

Adelaide: Harbhajan Singh, caught in a race row during the second Test which threatened to disrupt the series, said the tumultuous events hadn’t bothered him during his innings of 63 against Australia on Friday.

“Whatever has happened is gone,” said the off-spinner. “Our board is looking after it and I don’t need to worry about it. It’s not in my control. I don’t need to keep on going there and worrying. We’re here to play cricket.”

Harbhajan bumped into Stuart Clark while running between the wickets and patted the bowler on the back in apology.

“I apologised because I hit him hard,” said Harbhajan before alluding to the incident at Sydney when he had patted Brett Lee, bringing Andrew Symonds into the picture.

Big heart

Asked about his celebration on passing 50, Harbhajan said, “We had a plan to get 400 on the board and I was very happy when we had that partnership,” he said. “That’s what I was showing. I’ve got a big heart and I’ve done it. I told these guys I’ll get good runs for the team.”

Harbhajan said the hard work the lower order was putting in was paying off. “Robin Singh (fielding coach) and Venkatesh Prasad (bowling coach) and Greg King (trainer) have been working with us. We’ve been batting a lot in the nets and back ourselves to play some positive cricket.

“It’s great to see the way Nos. 8, 9, 10 and 11 have batted here. We won in Perth mainly because of the way R.P. Singh batted with (VVS) Laxman. It’s always important for the bowlers to bat well. I think I played a very stupid shot to get out. I could have got another 20-30 runs for myself.”

Harbhajan called Anil Kumble the “best captain I’ve played under after Sourav Ganguly”, adding that his partner in the 107-run partnership was a “fighter and wants everybody in the team to fight”.

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