Harbhajan Singh during the 2001 Australia series
Former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly on Tuesday recalled veteran cricketer Harbhajan Singh's iconic Test hat-trick against Australia in 2001 at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. Ganguly hailed the performance as being one of the biggest contributions made by a player that he has witnessed, against a champion opponent.
Ganguly's tweet came in response to a post by Star Sports on that Test match. The legend wrote: "One of the biggest contribution I have seen by an individual against a champion opponent ..@harbhajan_singh"
It was India's first-ever Test hat-trick and Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist and Shane Warne were his victims.
Well, statistically speaking Ganguly might just be correct. Heading into the series back, Harbhajan had not played a Test match in the last 15 months or more. In fact, in the last eight Tests he played before the series, he managed 21 wickets at 38.57. But against Australia, in 2001, Harbhajan finished with 32 wickets in just three matches which included 28 in the last two as India defeated the visitors in one of the most memorable Test victories of all time while the off-spinner managed to enter record books with his scintillating performance.
Such was his dominance in the series that the next best bowler in the contest picked only three wickets, the ratio is the highest ever in Test cricket history. Not only so, while the spinner averaged 17.03 and had a strike rate of 33.4 in the series, but others combined to average 63.24 while the strike rate was 111.3.
It is also the highest percentage of wicket contribution (65.3) made by a player for a team in a seris of three or more matches. However, the tally is the fourth-best in the history in a series of three or fewer Tests. Three bowlers - Goerge Lohmann, Sydney Barnes and Richard Hadlee - stand above him in the list.
