The terminator

Sourav Ganguly's insistence on Harbhajan Singh being in his XI was easily his biggest contribution to the historic Test series victory against Australia last March. For Harbhajan, whose temperament and attitude had been under the spotlight, the first Test offered the first glimpse of oasis after a couple of seasons in the wilderness.

The opening lines of the second act were delivered with aplomb and style. Harbhajan's guile and aggressive enthusiasm hauled India back into the ring as they defended a total of 176. The Australians struggled to read his looping deliveries and they had little idea once the ball hit the deck and fizzed through like an angry rattlesnake. Mark Waugh and Justin Langer edged their way back to the pavilion and a visibly shaken Ricky Ponting - touted as Australia's best player of spin - was caught at bat-pad. Harbhajan was in adrenaline overdrive and his clenched fist whirred in celebration like a helicopter rotor.

Along came Adam Gilchrist with a hold-on-a-minute-mate twinkle in his eye and went on to drive, cut, pull and dab his way to one of the finest hundreds ever on a turning track. When the spinners erred, his bat flashed so viciously they must have felt the whiplashes on their backs. Harbhajan got his man finally, stumped by Nayan Mongia, but the clenched-fist celebrations were muted, the rotor had whirred to a stop.

At Kolkata, Harbhajan troubled the batsmen from the moment he came on and his variations in turn, flight and angle of attack had already accounted for Matthew Hayden and Mark Waugh by the time a jittery Ponting arrived at the crease. His inability to pick the delivery that darted away had reduced the normally flamboyant batsman to a jelly-kneed wreck. He had progressed to six when Harbhajan decided it was time for the next chapter in his personal odyssey.

Ponting was deceived in the flight and trapped leg before while Gilchrist was rapped on the pads and out for a blob playing across the line. Shane Warne clipped the first delivery he faced to Sadagoppan Ramesh at the right of forward short leg. The first ever hat-trick for an Indian bowler in Test cricket and the pumped fist was back with renewed vigour as the stadium erupted in a cauldron of noise.

Each wicket he picked up subsequently infused Harbhajan with fresh energy and gave him the confidence to experiment with more variations. The Australian batsmen and media worked out the equations and came up with one variable too many. After the Laxman-Dravid miracle had left them needing to bat over two sessions to save the Test, there were worried faces aplenty when the man dubbed the Turbanator came on to bowl.

It was his sheer unpredictability that flummoxed them. One delivery would rip back off the wicket into the body while the next hastened on and moved away. Some were tossed up, others zipped through at Anil Kumble-like pace. The close-in fielders had their hands full as edge after edge came their way off bat and pad. Ricky Ponting, who resembled a man meeting the Grim Reaper, lasted all of four balls. An hour later McGrath was given out leg before, triggering off absolute delirium in India's little corner of paradise.

The decisive Chennai Test hinged on a momentary lapse of reason from Steve Waugh. Till Waugh's dismissal, it had been a contest for the ages - two batsmen (Hayden made 203) in terrific form, pitched against a spinner who had suddenly discovered the nuances that characterise the highest elements of his art. Gilchrist - a pale imitation of his Mumbai jumping-bean self - was trapped leg before for one and Ponting was stumped by a mile after charging down the track like an enraged lunatic.

The close catchers once again earned overtime as Harbhajan turned in a once-in-a-lifetime display. Flight and turn to rival Warne, zip off the pitch to match Kumble and his own version of the offspinner's googly which reared up like an overspun squash ball. By the time Colin Miller was given out lbw to end the Australian second innings, Harbhajan "the indisciplined lad with the bad atti-tood" had 32 wickets for the series.

He wasn't finished - coming out to tuck away the winning runs after India collapsed in house-of-cards fashion chasing just 155. As he fell to his knees on the Chepauk turf, we were left to rub your hands across our eyes and reflect on an individual performance the likes of which we shall surely never witness again.