Will Harbhajan spin magic in Australia?

India have named just two spinners for the forthcoming tour of Australia -- off-spinner Harbhajan Singh and leg-spinner Anil Kumble.

Nothing out of the routine there. Both spinners have consistently featured in the Indian squad, 'Bajji' for the last couple of years, Kumble for the last decade and more.

While Kumble has been chosen for his experience, Harbhajan Singh has been chosen because the selectors believe he has been India's best spinner over the last two years.

The problem is, which is the key phrase in Harbhajan Singh's case? 'India's best spinner'? Or 'has been'?

Let us look back on his performances in both versions of the game starting with the momentous home series against Australia in 2001.

A couple of important points emerge from a statistical analysis of Harbhajan Singh's performance in Tests. His strike rate in every series after the Australian tour of 2001 has never come close to what it was in that series, when he single-handedly destroyed the mighty Aussie batting line-up.

Against the Australians, Bajji picked up 32 wickets in three Test matches at the amazing average of 17.03, with a superb strike rate of 33.47. Since then, however, he has picked up just 97 wickets in 24 Tests, including just four five-wicket hauls. His career tally thus stands at 129 wickets in 27 Tests, with 11 five-wicket hauls and two ten-wicket hauls.

Interestingly, in the same period from 2001 through 2003, Sri Lanka's Muthiah Muralitharan, the world's leading off-spinner, snared no less than 157 wickets in the same number of Tests, 24. And Australia's Shane Warne, the leading leg-spinner, took 125 wickets in the 23 Tests that he played in 2001 and 2002.

Harbhajan Singh's Test record by series, starting with Australia's tour of India:

The offie's economy rate has clearly improved over the last three years, but his strike rate and average have deteriorated at the same time. Also, while his averages in home series are still good, even excellent at times, with the exception of the last series against New Zealand, his best average away has come against Zimbabwe, a side that ranks at the bottom of the table of Test-playing nations, just above Bangladesh. That does not inspire too much confidence in his ability as a strike bowler on foreign soil.

An interesting feature of the chart is that all but two of Bajji's 11 five-wicket hauls have come at home. And the two that came abroad were achieved at heavy cost, with a none-too-exciting strike rate -- 5 for 138 versus the West Indies at Sabina Park and 5 for 115 versus England at The Oval, hardly the figures that will have the world champions breaking out in a cold sweat.

The last series against New Zealand can be seen either as an aberration, where his performance at home proved much worse than most of his performances abroad, or as a sign of things to come. Your guess is as good, or bad, as mine.

Harbhajan Singh's Test record by year, since 2001:

In the shorter version of the game, Harbhajan Singh has always been a steady bowler. In his last 69 Limited Overs Internationals since Australia's tour of India in 2001, he has picked up 86 wickets at an average of 29.02, with an ordinary strike rate of 49.54 and an economy rate of 4.29 runs per over.

His bowling performance in the recent TVS Cup tri-series was, of course, worse than this, so much so that he was dropped from the team for a couple of matches. He played in five matches in the tri-series, picking up just four wickets at an embarrassing average of 40.50, with a strike rate of 60, or one wicket in 10 overs! Though his economy rate was acceptable at 4.05, his best figures in the series read 1 for 34 in 10 overs.

Harbhajan Singh's LOI record by series, starting with Australia's tour of India:

The off-spinner had a good time in the 2003 World Cup, picking up 11 wickets in 10 matches, at an average of 30.45, with a strike rate of 46.55. The most impressive part of his bowling was the economy rate which read 3.93 after bowling 85.2 overs in the tournament.

Interestingly, he seems to have the happy knack of performing well at multinational tournaments, as evidenced by his figures in the ICC Champions Trophy and the World Cup. But even in these tournaments his strike rate hasn't been exciting.

The only series over the last 18 months in which Bajji has put in a truly great show in terms of all three parameters that are used to describe bowling performance was the TVS Cup tri-series in Dhaka in April this year, where the other teams were Bangladesh and South Africa under a new young captain with quite a few new faces. And the last time he registered a five-wicket haul in an LOI was against England at Mumbai in February 2002, when he picked up 5 wickets for 43 runs.

Harbhajan Singh's LOI record by year, since 2001: