NEW DELHI, Oct 16:
Team India discard Harbhajan Singh took strong offence of controversial umpire Darrell Hair’s statement on chucking and has threatened to sue the Australian if he continued to tarnish his reputation.
Hair, who was the first international umpire to call on chucking when he held Sri Lankan wizard Muttiah Muralitharan in the Boxing day Test against Australia in 1995, made some provocative comments that youngsters with suspect action have been made role model.
“I have no time for Darrell Hair’s nonsense. Who the hell is he? Is he bigger than the ICC? But if he tries to damage my reputation or belittle my achievements as an international cricketer with another provocative comment, I will be speaking to BCCI and seek legal action against Hair,” a miffed Harbhajan said.
Hair in a recent interview to an Australian daily had said, “I said it in the late ’90s that if something wasn’t done about it you’d have a generation of chuckers on your hands and now you have. They try to emulate Harbajan Singh and Saqlain Mushtaq and Murali and that’s the problem”.
From the start of his career, there is no love lost between Harbhajan and the Australians but what he disliked about Hair’s comment was his idea of trying to paint everyone with the same brush.
“Well, I have undergone bio-mechanics test at Perth in Australia in 2005 under B Foster as well as in England under Fred Titmus in 1999. ICC has all my reports and this former umpire tries to malign my reputation. It has taken 14 years of rigorous hardwork to attain a level and some random man can’t spoil that,” said the spinner who has 413 Test and 259 ODI wickets for India.
Harbhajan said that he is proud of being one of the pioneers in successful execution of the ‘doosra’ or the wrong’ one. “Saqlain Mushtaq invented the doosra and I perfected the art. I am proud of having successfully executed the doosra. If some bowlers are not being able to bowl doosra within legal limits, it is not my look-out,” said the 34-year-old bowler. (UNI)
Follow our WhatsApp channel