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The 28-year-old off-spinner, who has shouldered the task of spearheading India's spin department after Kumble's retirement last year, said slow bowlers' success in the ongoing second edition of the IPL in South African conditions has proved wrong the perception that Twenty20 cricket was not meant for tweakers.
"When this concept was in the pipeline the biggest threat was on the existence of the spinners as the format was not meant to be spinner supportive. To be more precise, the format was thought as the killer to the art of spin bowling. But look how it has taken a 360 turn for our creed. Now the spinning section of the team plays the pivotal role in this new avatar of cricket," Harbhajan wrote in his blog on a social networking site.
Interestingly, in the first few days of the cash-rich Twenty20 event, spinners have already played a significant role for their respective teams on the pacy and bouncy pitches of South Africa.
Kumble, Warne, Daniel Vettori and Harbhajan himself -- playing for different IPL franchises -- have posed serious problems for the opposition batsmen.
"Here I would surely like to mention the performance by Anil bhai (Kumble). It's nearly impossible to make out that this man hasn't bowled for a while. The last time I saw him bowling was with a broken finger in Delhi, where afterwards he proudly walked into the cricketing sunset. Though he bowled after a long break, but the zeal and the bounce, the accuracy and the intensity were the same. The five wicket haul, shelling out just five runs for exchange is no joke in any format, forget about T20," Harbhajan said.
He heaped praise on Warne and said to see the Australian's magic with the ball, after nearly two years of his retirement, is unbelievable.
"And how could I proceed without appreciating the undaunting efforts of the other magician with the ball, Shane Warne. You really need to pinch yourself to believe that he can still spin web around the best of the batsmen in the world. He retired in 2007 World Cup and now spends more time on Poker table then cricket pitches. But give him a ball and the magic resumes. He can still spin big and land the ball in right areas. Leg spin is a difficult art, but they make it look so easy. That's why I call them DADA cricketers, and I have learnt a lot from them," the Sardar from Jalandhar said.
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