Don't Blame me, Symonds!...Harbhajan Singh

No one forced Andrew Symonds to drink, says Harbhajan in response to the Queenslander attributing his Booze problem to the 2008 drama

India's controversial off-spinner Harbhajan Singh is not impressed with suggestions that his war with Andrew Symonds in the Sydney Test of 2008 led to him hitting the bottle harder.I am not to blame," said Harbhajan from his hotel room yesterday in St Lucia where India and West Indies continue their four-match one-day international series on Friday. Both teams won a game each in the first leg over the weekend.

"I sit back now and I look at it (row with Harbhajan who allegedly called Symonds a monkey), and I think at some point I was going to blow, I was going to bust whether it was now or whether it was in two months time," said Symonds in a recent television interview Down Under.

Heavy drinking
Symonds' girlfriend Katie Johnson was emphatic too when the interviewer asked her as to whether she thought her lover drank too much. "He did six months ago, 12 months ago. After the Harbhajan thing his drinking got pretty bad, and there was one point where I sat him down and said: 'Look, I think you've got a drinking problem' ", she said.

Recalling the Harbhajan episode, Johnson added: He (Symonds) was very angry and hurt by people, which I think made him drink, and the more he drank, the more the anger and the hurt would come out."

Harbhajan reasoned: "Look, no one took Symonds by the hand and forced him to drink. He can't blame anyone.

It's wrong. People are old and mature enough to decide what's good or bad for them."

Symonds has lost his Cricket Australia contract for breaking team rules during the recent ICC World T20 in England. The big question now is whether this brilliant all-rounder will be seen in Australia colours. Harbhajan is not sure. "I don't know if he can come back. As a player he is brilliant; great. Whether he can concentrate on his game is to be seen. I don't know what the exact situation is," said Harbhajan.

Interestingly, Symonds is not the only player who finds himself down in the dumps after a clash with Harbhajan. S Sreesanth too, whom Harbhajan slapped during the 2008 edition of the Indian Premier League, has not come close to making it back in the national team.