Harbhajan Singh wants his ICC World Cup 2011 performance to be praised not ridiculed
India’s prolific spinner Harbhajan Singh on Tuesday lashed out at his critics and insisted that his performance in the recently concluded ICC World Cup 2011 should be admired and not ridiculed.
“I bowled at different points of innings: in slog overs, in powerplays. My economy rate is 4.48 from the tournament. It is to be praised and not ridiculed,” said the spearhead spinner while talking to the media reporters. “I am faulted for
my effort. Everyone conveniently forgets that one-day cricket is all about building pressure, bowling tightly to create pressure on the opponents, create openings.”
The 30-year-old off-spinner, who was assumed to be the spearhead of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750’s spin department, was outshined by the part-time spinner Yuvraj Singh as the latter returned with 15 wickets in the contest compared to 9 of Harbhajan.
Cricket pundits heavily criticised Harbhajan’s patchy performance in the mega event and said that he should have played the role of a frontline bowler. Analysts slammed the right-arm off-spinner for focusing on containing the opposition
batsmen rather than attacking them.
The Jalandhar bowler said the bowling department of India was the centre of criticism before and during the esteemed World Cup event, but it was just because of outstanding bowling that they were able to defeat the defending champions http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746
in the quarter-finals and then archrivals http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 in the semis.
“Now nobody remembers that we won the quarter-final because of our bowlers. The semi-finals? Because of our bowlers. Not many top teams can be halted at 260 or stopped from chasing a total of thereabouts,” added Singh.
He also hailed the fielding efforts of his side in the knockout stage and complained that nobody praised their athletic fielding against Australia as it was just because of the fielding that they saved 10 crucial runs.
He urged the Indian media and former cricket players to stop criticising and asked them to back the World Cup winning team. He said that if they continued criticising the young cricketers, it might backfire as the players might begin to
doubt themselves.
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