With the IPL frenzy starting in March, 2010 was a different experience for the whole IPL family. More so, for the MI Paltan. They first had to shift their home ground to the Brabourne Stadium as, Wankhede; the preferred home venue, was under renovation. And, within a fortnight of the tournament’s start, the Mumbai Indians boarded a bus to the swanky Dr DY Patil Sports Stadium in Navi Mumbai, to play an ‘away’ match.

Yes, an away match. Since the then defending champions Deccan Chargers couldn’t play in Hyderabad due to terror strikes in the City of Nizam just before IPL-3, Chargers played their home games in Navi Mumbai, Cuttack and Nagpur. Naturally, when the teams took to the field on the match day, it remained an away game for MI only on paper. The crowd was firmly behind what the fans considered it as their home team.

And the Navi Mumbaikars, who seldom get an opportunity to witness highest quality cricket, would not only remember the game for a Sachin Tendulkar masterclass but; more importantly for Harbhajan Singh’s all-round performance, that snatched the game away from the ‘home’ team.

Harbhajan took guard with just 20 balls remaining in the innings. Tendulkar who had held the innings despite not getting any support from other specialist batsmen, had perished for a 43-ball 55. And the MI were staring at having been restricted for a sub-140 total.

But then came the Jalandhar jamboree, as Harbhajan changed the course of the game in the 18 balls he faced. Ten of his 18 balls were despatched either across or over the fence. The result was MI put on a total of 172, and Harbhajan remained unbeaten on 49.

Harbhajan, started his assault on Andrew Symonds, hitting his best mate from the Monkeygate controversy, for a boundary and a six in the 18th over. The next over saw Kemar Roach, the West Indies pacer, bearing the brunt of Harbhajan’s heroic efforts. The over yielded 19 runs, with Harbhajan hitting three boundaries and a six.

At the start of the last over, Chargers’, Jaskaran Singh hurled a beamer at Harbhajan which almost struck into the batsman’s face. While the bowler was quick to apologise, he repeated it off the next ball, only to see the ball flying past fine-leg fence for a four. The umpires then took the bowler out of the attack for having bowled two bouncers above waist-height and Rohit Sharma, who was then with the Deccan Chargers, had to bowl the last six balls. The first three balls that the offie Rohit bowled to Harbhajan were sent to the boundaries through midwicket, mid-off and straight down the ground, thus completing the Bhajji onslaught.

So charged was Harbhajan after the cameo, that Tendulkar threw the ball to the reliable offspinner for opening the innings. If Harbhajan’s offspinners could get rid of the dangerous Adam Gilchrist early on, that would have won more than half the battle for Mumbai Indians. And Harbhajan required just two balls to do the needful. An attempted cut by Gilchrist flew off his edge and Tendulkar himself took a superb one-handed catch at first slip.

While the Chargers could never recover from the Harbhajan onslaught, Mumbai Indians continued their magic for the rest of the essay. Harbhajan, took three for 31, Zaheer Khan and Lasith Malinga shared all the ten wickets as the Chargers were bowled out for 131 in the 18th over.