"Thiruvalluvar has come in to bowl" - R Ashwin shares hilarious tale about Harbhajan Singh's Tamil posts during CSK stint

Former India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has shared a hilarious story about how he came to know that Harbhajan Singh was sharing posts on social media in Tamil during his IPL stint with Chennai Super Kings (CSK). Ashwin recalled that he learnt about the same after a Tamil commentator referred to Harbhajan as Thiruvalluvar (Tamil poet and philosopher) during one of the IPL matches.

Harbhajan represented CSK in the IPL for two seasons from 2018 to 2019. He withdrew from the 2020 edition due to personal reasons. Before that, he was part of the Mumbai Indians (MI) franchise from 2008 to 2017. During his stint with the Chennai franchise, the former off-spinner's decision to share posts on X (formerly Twitter) in Tamil won him a lot of admirers.

In an interaction with Harbhajan on the 'Kutti Stories with Ash' podcast, Ashwin recalled the funny incident of how he came to know about the 'Turbanator' sharing social media posts in Tamil. He revealed:

"There was an actor who used to do commentary in Tamil - RJ Balaji. I used to watch matches in Tamil because I found him funny. So, you were coming in to bowl and he was like, 'Thiruvalluvar has come in to bowl'. I was like, what? Then I checked Twitter (now X) and realized that you were posting in Tamil. During IPL, the farther you remain from Twitter, the better."

Sharing his thoughts on why he decided to share social media posts in Tamil, Harbhajan explained that he wanted to connect with CSK fans on a deeper level. The 45-year-old elaborated:

"There was a guy called Saravanan, who helped me during my CSK days. I wanted to feel connected with people out there. There was already a connection, having played for India. But, when you are playing for the Yellow Army, you have to be part of that. This guy was a gem. He came up to me and asked me to post [in Tamil]. I believe that you can win over people by respecting their language. "Whatever I wanted to say in Hindi or English, he used to write it for me in Tamil. I used to put it out there, and credit to him for wording it all so well. Suddenly, it became viral and I was on the news. Then someone made a YouTube story out of it," the former India cricketer went on to add.

After representing CSK for two seasons in the IPL, Harbhajan ended his career in the T20 league with Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), a franchise he represented in the 2021 season.

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Harbhajan Singh's record for CSK in the IPL

Harbhajan played 24 matches for Chennai across two seasons in the IPL, claiming 23 wickets at an average of 25.30 and an economy rate of 7.67, with a best of 3-20. He was, however, left out of the 2018 final against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), which CSK went on to win. Leg-spinner Karn Sharma was preferred over the seasoned offie in the final.

Overall, Harbhajan played 163 matches in the IPL and claimed exactly 150 wickets at an average of 26.86 and an economy rate of 7.07, with one five-fer and one four-fer to his credit.

Edited by Renin Wilben Albert