When Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan threw Sachin Tendulkar into a Jacuzzi

MUMBAI: It was a balmy Friday in Mumbai, and the CK Nayudu Hall at the Brabourne Stadium got warmer with emotion as members of the Legends Club congregated to celebrate Sachin Tendulkar’s 53rd birthday. Nuanced conversations followed, anecdotes were narrated, generous dips into nostalgia pools were taken, and sharp views on where the game is headed were offered.

At the centre of this conversation sat off-spin great Harbhajan Singh, India’s 103-Test veteran and owner of 417 Test scalps. He’s also a World Cup winner in 2007 and 2011, an IPL stalwart, a politician, a broadcaster, a YouTuber, and, at heart, an unapologetic lover of Test cricket and true pitches.

As Legends Club president and former India player Yajurvindra Singh welcomed Harbhajan and MCA president Ajinkya Naik, he also asked the spinner to address how cricket has changed from the days when a 60-over match was approached like a mini-Test. Harbhajan, after all, represented a very different era, almost an unforgiving one for the bowlers. He arrived when cricket was already changing. One-day cricket had sunk its teeth into the calendar, T20 was an idea waiting to explode and short boundaries and big bats meant long faces for spinners who were being asked to be defensive rather than threatening.

Bhajji, though, was also someone who had graduated through the rigours of Test cricket.

“Test cricket tests you in every possible way,” Harbhajan said. “Playing 100 Tests was the biggest achievement of my career,” he added and stressed that playing 100 Tests became his goal when he saw Kapil Dev get to the mark, but doubted whether too many people would achieve that in the modern era.

Heads nodded in agreement, though the discussion inevitably turned to modern cricket’s obsession with shorter formats, six-hitting and money-spinning leagues.

So, where does Test cricket stand today?

Harbhajan’s answer was firm. “Save Test cricket by playing more Test cricket,” he said, and added, “And by preparing better pitches. Matches should last five days, not finish in two-and-a-half. If we see Ashes, the top series, the games last five days. When India plays Australia, why should Tests end in two and a half days? We had an India-England Test where we saw Joe Root take five wickets in five overs. I remember how many overs I needed to bowl to take a Test five-for.”

Like the Eden Gardens Test of 2001, where Harbhajan spun India back into a dead series against Australia. It was a reminder of what five-day cricket enables: shifts in momentum, broken morale, revived belief.