Punjab Kings defeated Lucknow Super Giants by two wickets in the final over thriller in the Indian Premier League (IPL) on Saturday. They missed their skipper Shikhar Dhawan in the game due to an injury and that paved the way for Harpreet Singh Bhatia in the playing XI. Not many were aware of the cricketer until he made it to the PBKS XI. Interestingly, this was not an IPL debut for Harpreet. Perhaps, he was playing a game in the cash-rich league for the first time since May 19, 2012, after a massive gap of 10 years and 332 days.
It also turned out to be a record for the longest gap between two appearances in the history of IPL. Coming back to his last IPL game, back in 2012, he was a budding cricketer then with a hope of playing for India and was picked up by the now defunct franchise Pune Warriors. Harpreet played his only game of the season against Kolkata Knight Riders scoring six runs before getting out to Sunil Narine.
There is another interesting story linked to Harpreet Singh Bhatia whose IPL dreams were shattered after a case of mistaken identity. Then, a player named Harmeet Singh, India U19 cricketer, found himself in trouble with law for breaking the rules while driving a car that led to his arrest. However, while breaking the news, ANI erroneously tweeted that 'Harpreet Singh' was arrested instead of Harmeet Singh. "Under 19 cricketer Harpreet Singh detained for driving a car straight into Andheri railway station platform last night," the tweet read then.
The error turned out to be disastrous for Harpreet as those were the days in the lead up to the auction and despite wanting to buy him, a franchise didn't go for him in the auction after news of his arrest went viral. "We wanted to buy him, but as news came of Harpreet’s arrest, we decided not to do so since it would give the franchise a bad image. But later, when the auction got over, we came to know it was Harmeet and not Harpreet," a franchise official told Indian Express.
More importantly, ANI later issued a clarification but the chance for Harpreet Singh to play the IPL had gone. "Mera naam toh kharab ho gaya na (my image has been tarnished). How can one clear that? I am not bothered about IPL now, it’s gone. But even if you run a search on my name on Google, the first thing that comes up is that I was arrested," Harpreet had said then.
Nevertheless, the 31-year-old has got yet another chance of making it big in the IPL and scored a sedate 22 off 22 with three fours to his name. He plays domestic cricket for Chhattisgarh and is the captain of the team. Harpreet has played 75 First-Class, 84 List A and 78 T20 matches in his career so far. He played his fifth IPL game on Saturday after making his IPL debut back in 2010 for Kolkata Knight Riders. Punjab Kings secured his services for INR 40 lakh in the IPL 2023 auction.
