I got my chance to play, I am happy: Harbhajan

• I don’t know whether this performance will show whether I should be selected or not. It’s tough to sit out and see the matches from outside. But it’s all part of the game and still you learn a lot when you sit out. Obviously, I wanted to get back into the first XI and I got my chance to play here and I am very happy.

—Harbhajan Singh, June 24

Those five wickets in St Kitts would surely not find a place in Harbhajan Singh’s top 10 album, but they would hopefully have gone a long way in helping the emotional 25-year-old get on the same song sheet with the Indian team management.

It has been a bit of a struggle for the world class off-spinner to strike the right chord with the new set-up after the exit of Sourav Ganguly. And there have been many indicators to this — the flickering strike rate over the last eight months, except for that 10-wicket haul against Sri Lanka last year, and more notably that explosive September interview in which he accused the coach of “double standards” and creating an atmosphere of “fear and insecurity”.

Of course, there was a patch-up almost immediately, but the communication line between the two has not quite been at its very best since then. If the Team India thinktank has probably been expecting much more from the bowler in terms of commitment and focus, the high-strung Jalandhar star would be hoping for the establishment to take that extra step forward over the bridge.

Coach Greg Chappell did have a chat with Harbhajan after he was unexpectedly dropped for the first Test in Antigua, but that “explanation” did not apparently go the way both would have liked it to. The “freak” groin stiffness one day before the second Test did not help matters much, either.

On Saturday, after he had cut off the West Indies tail, Harbhajan was asked if he felt disappointed now that he did not play in Antigua, where the last pair batted out 19 balls to save their team. He replied with an embarrassed smile and a quick laugh, “I don’t know. Maybe.”

It’s a combination of many factors really: Harbhajan’s poor run and Chappell’s expectations, the different frequencies that both operate at, and a bit of a spillover from the past.

The Pakistan tour was probably the lowest point with the dead wickets of Lahore (0/176) and Faisalabad (0/171 & 0/78) hitting him between the ears and leading to his exit from the next Test in Karachi. And, England’s visit later, from which he should have profited, ended up in further disappointment: eight wickets in three Tests.

In fact, if you discount that 10/141 in Ahmedabad, Harbhajan had taken only 18 Test wickets in 16 innings since Chappell took over — till this West Indies tour. Not disastrous but definitely disappointing when you look at his career chart till this series: 55 Tests, 227 wickets, 30.14 average and 17 five-wicket hauls.

And here is where the five wickets at the Warner Park — even if he was not at his best and even if four of them were tailenders — would help. Harbhajan would hope that he has shown what could have been in Antigua and the team management would expect him to climb the ladder from here, back to where he belongs.

Not surprisingly then, the tall, wiry off-spinner looked more relaxed than ever on this tour at the end of the day, breaking into a wide smile when asked about the comical dismissal of No 11 Corey Collymore who let the ball go through between his legs to hit the stumps. “On this wicket, to get even a No 11 batsman out is difficult. So, to see him get out like that was funny,” he said.

Then, asked about the wicket, he joked, “The wicket is very flat, and at least for me, the boundary seemed to be just 50 yards away. “Yeh to bilkul Lahore jaisa hai.”