Duleep Trophy: Harbhajan Singh to miss the tournament

Senior off-spinner Harbhajan Singh is all set to give the inaugural day and night Duleep Trophy with pink ball a miss due to pressing family commitments.

It has been learnt that the ace off-spinner is planning to take a break to spend quality family time with his wife Geeta and the new born daughter.

“Harbhajan’s daughter is not even a month old. It is quite natural that he needs to be with his wife and daughter at this point of time. Family is always the top most priority.  He is currently in the United Kingdom with his family,” a BCCI source close to the development told PTI on condition of anonymity.

Harbhajan, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina and Gautam Gambhir were the star attractions for the pink ball experiment.

But now with India’s third highest wicket-taker likely to be out of action, the sheen will be further off from the tourney which comprise mainly of India’s third string first-class players.

The big boys like Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Shikhar Dhawan will all be busy in the United States for the two T20 Internationals against the West Indies.

The second string India ‘A’ side led by Naman Ojha under Rahul Dravid’s coaching are currently in Australia for a month long series. Incidentally, the trio of Raina, Yuvraj and Harbhajan were a part of the World T20 India squad that lost in semi-finals.

Raina had a poor tournament while Yuvraj was getting into the groove before being injured and Harbhajan did not play in a single game despite Ravichandran Ashwin not being given full quota of overs by skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni.