Harbhajan Singh gives a mouth-shutting reply to Michael Clarke after the Aussie skipper’s comments on IPL

A few days ago, the 2015 World Cup winning captain, Michael Clarke explained why the Australian team has struggled against team India recently. According to the right-handed batsman, the Aussies try to maintain a good relation with the Indian captain, Virat Kohli so that they can earn big IPL contracts. 

The Australian players are known for sledging their opponents and then taking control over the game. However, in the last 2 years, Australia has not played its natural game. The most successful team in World Cup history lost a home Test series against India for the first time ever. Also, Australia could not defeat India in the 2019 World Cup league round. In 2020, they lost an ODI series despite taking an early lead. 

Clarke mentioned that the IPL contracts are the reason behind Australia’s recent failures against India. It is worth noting that the top class Australian T20 players like Glenn Maxwell, Pat Cummins, David Warner and Steve Smith receive a handsome amount of money for playing in the IPL. In fact, even Clarke played one IPL season for the Pune Warriors India. 

Harbhajan Singh came to the defense of Kohli and IPL as he slammed Clarke by pointing out that the franchise owners hand million dollar deals to the players. The Chennai Super Kings off-spinner was quoted as follows by Times of India:
“Virat Kohli does not give contracts to all! If you’re good enough nobody will stop you. Someone like (David) Warner or (Steve) Smith…how can you stop them? They don’t need to fear for their contracts. I don’t know if, at all he felt there are guys (who fear for their contracts), he should have named them. But I don’t think putting everyone on the same boat is right.”

He further mentioned that a friendly relation with Kohli would not help any player earn a big IPL deal because the franchises analyze and invest their funds only in the players who perform well.