IMAGE: Punjab Kings’s Harpreet Singh Bhatia hits out through the IPL 2023 recreation in opposition to the Mumbai Indians on the Wankhede stadium on Saturday, April 22, 2023. {Photograph}: BCCI
It has been an extended wait of greater than 10 years for Harpreet Singh Bhatia, who performed an important knock of 41 from 28 balls to assist the Punjab Kings overpower the Mumbai Indians by 13 runs within the IPL 2023 match in Mumbai on Saturday.
Harpreet, who has scored 77 runs in three video games for PBKS, featured within the IPL after an extended wait of 10 years and 332 days — the longest hole between appearances for any participant within the historical past of IPL.
Harpreet, who had a base value of Rs 20 lakh (Rs 2 million), was purchased by PBKS on the gamers public sale in December 2022 for Rs 40 lakh (Rs 4 million).
It was an enormous sigh of reduction for the Chhattisgarh captain who missed out on the IPL public sale in 2017 reportedly after a information company incorrectly tweeted Harpreet’s identify as an alternative of former Mumbai participant Harmeet Singh, who was arrested for driving his automobile into the platform on the Andheri railway station in suburban Mumbai.
This incident occurred earlier than the then IPL public sale which made the franchises cautious of selecting a participant who was on the flawed aspect of the legislation.
Regardless that the information company later issued one other tweet saying ‘Incident of driving automobile into Andheri Railway Stn platform concerned U19 cricketer Harmeet Singh, not Harpreet Singh as reported earlier’, for Harpreet it was an enormous blow within the prime of his profession because the error price him years of his IPL profession.
Regardless that, he was later referred to as up by the Royal Challengers Bangalore as an harm substitute for Sarfaraz Khan, he did not get a single recreation and the 31 12 months outdated needed to wait one other six years earlier than he lastly received picked on the public sale.
Harpreet’s earlier IPL look got here in 2012 when he performed only one recreation for the now defunct Pune Warriors. He had earlier been purchased by the Kolkata Knight Riders in 2010 however did not get to bat in the one match that he was picked in…
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