Team India's former cricketer Harbhajan Singh was born on 3rd July 1980 and turned 42 years old on Sunday.
To celebrate this auspicious day, here are some interesting and lesser-known facts about Harbhajan Singh:
- Story behind the name 'Bhajji' -
Harbhajan's fellow teammate Nayan Mongia coined the nickname Bhajji as it was hard for him to speak the full name. Back then Mongia wanted to encourage the off-spinner from behind the stumps and came up with the name.
His name became extremely popular and in the year 2009,
Harbhajan sold licensing rights to his name and got the name 'Bhajji' patented. Moreover, he also owns a company by that name.
- Trained to be a batter initially:
The Turbanator Harbhajan scalped 417 wickets in 103 Test matches, 269 wickets in 236 ODIs, and 235 wickets from 268 T20s including 25 wickets in 28 T20Is. Interestingly, he was initially trained to be a batter by his coach Charanjit Singh. However, he switched to spin-bowling after his coach's demise when his new coach Davinder Arora instructed him to do so.
- Offered a job in the Punjab police:
In the year 2002, Bhajji was offered a position in the Punjab police as DSP. The post was offered by Prakash Singh Badal who was the state's Chief Minister back then. This came after he took 32 wickets in three Test matches including a hat-trick against Australia in 2001. However, he declined the offer due to his commitment to the game.
- Harbhajan Singh and movies:
Harbhajan Singh made special appearances in four movies to date.
The movies are as follows -
- Mujhse shaadi karoge (Hindi movie) in 2004
- Bha Ji in Problem (Punjabi movie) in 2013
- Second-hand husband (Hindi movie) in 2015
- Friendship (Tamil movie) in 2021
- What is his lucky number?
Harbhajan considers number 3 very fortunate for him as it is his birthdate. He chose it to be his jersey number in the Indian team, in his IPL team Mumbai Indians, and in the Punjab cricket team too.
