India vs Bangladesh: Harbhajan Singh there, but not quite

You need to strike and strike early. Harbhajan didn’t strike late, but those 5.4 overs before he got one to dip on Mominul Haque looked as interminable as those two years, three months and 12 days.

It was in the 17th over of the day — and Bangladesh’s innings after India declared on their overnight score of 462/6 — that Virat Kohli threw the ball at Harbhajan. He was the fifth of the five Indian bowlers to be called to service. The other off-spinner, Ravichandran Ashwin, whom he replaced, had opened the attack with Ishant Sharma.

The order in which bowlers bowl is very unlike the batting order, which is mostly set and is tweaked only in radical circumstances. At what stage is a bowler is introduced —early or late — won’t generally lead to a great degree of scrutiny or insecurity. In any case a spinner would like to come on late.

But here was a compelling reason for Harbhajan to get anxious. He had waited for three frustratingly long days for a chance to roll his arm over in the match, and now a massive dark cloud had begun to gather on the horizon. On a helpful pitch, where Ashwin was getting much assistance, would he not get to bowl after all?

Finally, with Ashwin getting a bit tired after eight overs and Imrul Keyes and Haque settling in nicely, Kohli, seeking a breakthrough, brought the Turbanator on. Harbhajan walked up to the umpire, handed his hat over, and with a few long strides and a hop, he was at the top of his mark. From the around the wicket, he came with his peculiar but familiar run-up to bowl to the left-handed Keyes.

Three steps and a mini take off, three more steps and the final jump. If there was any nervous energy, the first five deliveries didn’t betray it. They were loopy, pitching on off-stump or just outside, and invited Keyes, who chose to block.

The sixth ball was a throwback to his ineffective days that saw him axed from the team. Short, wide and fired in, it was put away by Keyes past point for a four.

In the next four overs, Harbhajan bowled mostly full, but the ball didn’t dip as it had when Ashwin was bowling. The batsman, especially Keyes, looked comfortable against him and brought up his half century after charging down the track and hitting him past long-off for a boundary. The wind had begun to pick up. The clouds were close in, and self-doubt mustn’t have been too far away either.

It was then that Kohli took off Varun Aaron brought back Ashwin. It was spin from both ends. There were a lot of questions on Day One after two off-spinners were picked in the team. Wouldn’t the attack be a bit unidimensional was the main apprehension. When Ashwin was asked about it two days ago, he defended the decision.

“Harbhajan brings a different dimension to the whole team and the bowling set-up. We are two off spinners. Two very different kind of bowlers, to be honest… We bowl at different speeds. We have different strength and we have different weaknesses. It’s about trying and complementing each other,” he said.

In tandem, they indeed complemented each other. Ashwin a bit more than Bhajji, for argument’s sake, than vice-versa.

The Tamil Nadu tweaker bowled with the confidence of a bowler who has been India’s number one spinner — at least in the sub-continent — over the last couple of years. Earlier in his first spell, he got the ball to dip and turn appreciably and accounted for Tamim Iqbal, Bangladesh’s top run-getter in Tests. Soon after he came on for the second spell, the flow of runs stopped. Keyes and Haque looked unsure, and doubts started creeping in their minds.

It had a knock-on effect on Harbhajan’s bowling and he was beginning to look twice the bowler he was barely a couple of overs ago. The run flow down to a trickle, Keyes and Mominul began to take chances.

They chose Bhajji. Looking to hit him out of the park, Haque charged out but couldn’t reach the pitch of the ball and offered a simple catch at mid-off. His bid to match AB de Villiers’s world record of 12 consecutive 50-plus scores in Tests came up 20 runs short.

Ashwin sent new man in Mushfiqur Rahim right back after drawing him to play a forward defensive, but getting the ball to turn enough to take the edge of his bat and fly to leg slip. From 108/1, Bangladesh were 111/3 after 30 overs.

Soon after, the thunderstorm that had been brewing for a while, struck, and play was stopped.

Heavy downpour and inadequate draining facilities meant there would be no more action in the day. It also meant that the match would all but end in draw. However, with the possibility of some play on the final day, there remained one point of interest for India: How will Ashwin and Harbhajan bowl tomorrow? Can Harbhajan get more wickets tomorrow? Rest assured he wouldn’t be sleeping easy on Saturday night.