Harbhajan Singh announced his retirement from all forms of cricket on Friday. The veteran off-spinner was congratulated by former colleagues, including Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman, experts and several players from the current lot.
“All good things come to an end and today as I bid adieu to the game that has given me everything in life, I would like to thank everyone who made this 23-year-long journey beautiful and memorable. My heartfelt thank you,” Bhajji said in a tweet.
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During his career, the Turbanator picked up 417 Test, 269 ODI and 25 T20I wickets.
After making the announcement, Bhajji, in an interview with PTI, said he is not averse to joining politics but would like to put in a lot of thought before taking a final decision on such a move.
Recently, chief of Congress’ Punjab unit and Harbhajan’s former India teammate Navjot Singh Sidhu posted a picture with him on Twitter and captioned it “picture loaded with possibilities”. This led to speculation of him joining the party.
“Frankly speaking, I don’t know what’s in store for me. I just want couple of days to figure out in which direction I would like to move. Yes, I want to give back to society,” Harbhajan told PTI in an interview when asked about his future plans.
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“If I join politics, how and in what form, I need to figure those things out as main aim is to help people if I at all take the plunge,” he added.
Bhajji said that he would like to take up mentoring and coaching gigs.
“I have nearly completed my autobiography. It would be out in next six months and it’s my tell-all story as to how I have seen Indian cricket as an insider. Hope people love that book as much as they loved me.”
Harbhajan Singh also spoke about the phase in his career when he was repeatedly overlooked.
“Look, life can always be looked at from two different prisms. If I see from where I started as a small town boy from Jalandhar with absolutely no idea about worldly matters to where I ended, I can only count my blessings and thank the almighty, thousand times over. Even then, it won’t be enough to show how grateful I am because of cricket.”
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“But then if I look at things from a different prism, may be a thought would cross my mind that I could have had a different end to my cricket career.”
He further said that the Monkeygate incident in Sydney was ‘really unnecessary’.
“No one cared about my side of the truth in the whole episode. No one cared what I went through in those few weeks and how I was mentally sinking. I have never extensively given my side of the story but people will know about it in my upcoming autobiography. What I went through shouldn’t have happened to anyone.”
