Clearing over his rumoured rift relationship with MS Dhoni, Harbhajan Singh says they’ve been on friendly terms.

Indian spin legend Harbhajan Singh has announced his retirement from all forms of cricket last year. Harbhajan Singh and MS Dhoni’s relationship has always been on news, after the former retired.

Harbhajan Singh opened up as to how the lack of support from the Board of Control Of Cricket In India (BCCI) and ‘external’ factor pushed him out in the final phase of his national career during the second part of MS Dhoni’s captaincy tenure. He also revealed that ex-India captain MS Dhoni received a lot of backing from the Indian board.

Harbhajan Singh has earlier stated that he was backed by former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly as a youngster.

Now, settling down on all his relationship speculations with Dhoni, while speaking to News 18, Harbhajan Singh denied the claims and stated that the two of them are friends. When asked about his rapport with Dhoni, he said; Very nice. I am not married to him!”

Harbhajan Singh explained his comments on MS Dhoni on not getting proper backing after 2012, and said, “See, everyone interprets a quote differently. I just wanted to convey that a lot of things could have been better posting 2012. (Virender) Sehwag, me, Yuvraj (Singh), (Gautam) Gambhir could have retired playing for the Indian team since all of them were active in IPL as well.

“It is ironical that the Champions of the 2011 team never played together again! Why? Only a few of them played in the 2015 World Cup, why?”.

The Indian spin legend has no complaints against Dhoni, but has definitely put up few questions for the BCCI and selectors of that time. The cricketer also thought as to why the players of India’s 2011 World Cup never played together again.

“No, not at all. I have no complaints against MS. In fact, he has been a good friend all these years. I have a complaint to the BCCI, the sarkar (government) of that time. I call BCCI as sarkar! The selectors of that time didn’t do justice to their roles. They didn’t allow the team to be united,” said Harbhajan Singh as quoted by News18.

“What was the point of bringing in new guys when the greats were still around and delivering? I once confronted the selectors on this and their reply was it wasn’t in their hands and then I asked why they are the selectors, then?”, Harbhajan added.

Harbhajan Singh made his Test debut in 1998 against Australia in Bangalore, he played 103 Test, pulling of 417 wickets at an average of 32.46 and is one of the finest spinners to have represented India at the highest level.

“Luck has always been in my favor, but some external factors were not in my favor, perhaps they were completely against me, either because of the way I bowled or the way I went forward. I was 31 years old when I took 400 wickets and could have played 4-5 more years,” he had said. “I can tell you that by the standards I set myself, I would have taken 100-150 wickets or more,” he added.

Harbhajan Singh’s last appearance in the Indian jersey was back in March 2016 when MS Dhoni was still the limited overs captain.