Mumbai: India off-spinner Harbhajan Singh is well-known for off-field shenanigans and is widely regarded as one of the naughtiest cricketers in Team India. Bhajji, who plays for Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier league (IPL), has played scores of pranks on cricketers and has not even spared former India skipper Sourav Ganguly.
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In 2005, when the Indian team were playing arch-rivals Pakistan in Kochi, Ganguly, who once was an inspiration to youngsters, offered to step down from captaincy due to a prank played by Harbhajan and the rest of the Indian team.
On the chat show ‘What The Duck’ with cricket humourist Vikram Sathaye, Harbhajan recalled the funny yet memorable moment and the Indian tweaker couldn’t stop laughing out loud.
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We arranged for a person to make paper cuttings of a local newspaper and we told him to mention in the copy that ‘Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh are very unprofessional, all their concentration is on parties, the outside world and they are not serious about the game. After that we took the cuttings on practice day on April 1 and we all had a blast,” Harbhajan said.
The prank didn’t stop there.
I picked up my kitbag and started saying, ‘What is all this Dada? You say anything about us whenever you want? You said we go to discos, we do parties, we roam with girls. OK, we know you are the captain but that doesn’t mean we don’t care about our game! Dada was shocked saying, ‘When did I say this?’”” Harbhajan guffawed.
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Ganguly, who was stunned to listen to his teammates, eventually offered to quit captaincy. However, it was not long before Bhajji disclosed that it was all a prank.
‘The Turbanator’ also recalled the famous 2002 incident at Lords where Ganguly removed his shirt. Harbhajan too wanted to follow the same but was stopped.
Watch the entire video to know why and an hear about an fascinating scene when India icon Sachin Tendulkar was pushed into a jacuzzi.
(Video courtesy: Viu Originals’ ‘What the Duck’ hosted by Vikram Sathaye)
