For umpteen years India persisted with the lone off-spinner of Harbhajan Singh and for umpteen more years it looks to stay the same. To be fair, Harbhajan is a great spinner who has entertained us with his skill and won many matches for us. But as years have gone by, it looks to me that he has become a victim of his own reputation and often bowls to save his face from getting pummeled by the batsmen, rather than aggressively bowl to architect victories like in the past. That reputation to protect, that ego to quench often ends up with him bowling negatively or pointlessly to stop scoring off him. With that, he lost his original art of spin bowling which made him what he is today.

We like to harp forever on glorious past performances… it’s an Indian thing. The more I see Harbhajan off late the more I believe he is going the Danish Kaneria way. Picking wickets after bowling umpteen overs and conceding that many runs. Does it matter how many wickets one takes when the opposition scores over 500-600? That is the biggest criticism of Kaneria and Harbhajan is following suit.

When I watched him in Australia where he bowled fairly well, I was beginning to think that he was getting back on track but still far away from what he used to. The shockers came in the subsequent series at home where he looked as flat as a rookie. Sure he finally came up with a good performance in the recent second test against Sri Lanka to contribute towards a crucial win. But his consistency is alarmingly dwindling and this one good performance would seal his place for 20 more tests with pointless performances. In the process, how many will go by with very ordinary bowling.

The problem here is that there are none in the ranks to challenge him and push him. There is a complete lack of quality off-spinners in the country. We have an excellent leggie in Mishra and a fairly good spinner in Ojha, which again surprisingly the better of the two Mishra was not picked for this current Sri Lankan tour.

This is not a call to drop Harbhajan but to seriously start considering… if he can consistently bowl well, good for him and India. But looking at his dwindling consistency, India better quickly start looking out for the next off-spinner and start featuring him. Alternatively, they should consider dropping the idea of entertaining an off-spinner for the mere sake of variety and question whether it is contributing to a win. Why not feature two leg spinners then? I’m not convinced that variety in styles plays such an important role. It does when the quality is good… otherwise we might be better off featuring two quality leggies and my choice is Amit Mishra.

As of today Harbhajan is in his comfort zone, untouched and not at all debated and has learned the art of survival with these occasional good performance that keeps his plate warm. It is for everyone to realize that its getting colder by the day.