Harbhajan Singh was born on 3rd July, 1980, in Jalandhar. That is what the records say. But records are lazy.
They do not capture the boy who spent his afternoons eating hot jalebis near the railway station, who learned judo because he liked the sound of contact, who was the only son among 5 sisters in a Ramgarhia family that made ball bearings in a small factory.
The records do not tell you that his father looked at him and saw an India cap while everyone else saw a boy who might inherit a valve business.
This is not a story about a cricketer who became rich. It is a story about a boy who nearly became a truck driver in America, who stood in empty nets in Mohali while the national captain went for lunch, who bowled a doosra that changed Indian cricket, and who in 2026 had the word “Gaddar” painted on his house wall because he switched political parties.
It is a story about how the same aggression that made him fight Ricky Ponting now makes him fight AAP workers. The thread is the same. Only the stage changes.
The Boy Who Packed His Bags for America
Sardar Sardev Singh Plaha ran a small manufacturing unit. Ball bearings. Valves. The kind of work where your hands smell of metal at the end of the day and the noise stays in your ears even after you sleep. The unit was at 22, Daulatpuri. Not a fancy address.
The machines were loud. The workers were few. He was not a rich man. He was a man with a dream. He had 6 children. 5 daughters. 1 son. In a Sikh Ramgarhia household in Jalandhar in the 1980s, that math meant everything.
The son was the center of gravity. The father looked at Harbhajan and did not see a factory inheritor. He saw a cricketer.
The boy was restless. He tried judo. He tried karate. He tried kabaddi. He was good at all of them because he was angry and coordinated and he liked winning. He also liked food. Rajma-chawal. Gobhi paratha. Hot jalebis from the corner shop.
These are not details from a corporate profile. These are the things that make a person real. A boy who eats hot jalebis is a boy who knows pleasure. A boy who knows pleasure knows what he is fighting for later.
His first cricket coach was Charanjit Singh Bhullar. Harbhajan batted. He was not a bowler yet. Then Bhullar died. One day you have a coach, the next day you do not. Davinder Arora took over and said try off-spin. The boy listened. That is the thing about Harbhajan. He acts like he knows everything but deep down he listens. He changed his grip. He changed his life.
In 2000, the Indian team dropped him. The National Cricket Academy threw him out too. Disciplinary issues. We do not need the full gossip. What matters is the timing. Months later, Sardar Sardev Singh died.
The factory lost its owner. The family lost its head. And 20-year-old Harbhajan, the only son, looked at his mother and 5 unmarried sisters and realized he was now the man of the house. Except he had no job. No team. No income.
He seriously considered America. Not to play cricket. To wash dishes. To work at petrol pumps. To drive trucks. To send money back to Jalandhar. He looked at visa forms. He asked friends about Chicago. He was ready to wash utensils in a country where nobody knew his name.
Think about that image for a moment. The man who would one day take 780 first-class wickets was ready to migrate and do manual labour. This is the detail that haunts you. The image of a broken boy standing at a crossroads where every sign pointed away from cricket.
His mother Avtar Kaur watched him. She did not say much. She just stood there and let him decide. He decided to stay. Then Anil Kumble got injured in early 2001. The selectors needed a spinner. They called Harbhajan. He did not come back with gratitude. He came back with fury.
32 Wickets and a Hat-Trick That Stopped a Juggernaut
Australia in 2001 were not a cricket team. They were a machine. 16 Test wins in a row. Steve Waugh’s invincibles. They had bullied everyone. They were supposed to bully India too. Harbhajan was not even the first choice. Kumble was injured. The door opened a crack. Harbhajan kicked it down with his shoulder.
32 wickets in 3 Tests. At Eden Gardens, he bowled the ball that got Ricky Ponting. The first ball pitched on middle and leg. Ponting thought it was a standard off-break. It was the doosra. It went the other way. LBW.
The crowd of 80,000 went silent for one second. Then they screamed. Then Adam Gilchrist. Then Shane Warne. 3 balls. 3 wickets. India’s first Test hat-trick. He stopped Australia’s winning streak by himself.
A 20-year-old boy who had been planning his escape to American petrol pumps 12 months earlier was now standing over the best team in history and asking them what else they had.
He kept going. 103 Tests. 417 wickets. 236 ODIs. 269 wickets. 28 T20Is. 2 World Cups. 2007 T20. 2011 ODI. He played 163 IPL games and took 150 wickets. He captained Mumbai Indians to the 2011 Champions League title.
But the numbers are just noise. The real music is the boy who refused to leave the nets when everyone else had gone for lunch.
The Doosra, Applied to Business
When cricket ended in December 2021, he did not become a statue. He built things. Bhajji Sports. A manufacturing unit in Jalandhar. His mother Avtar Kaur runs it.
A woman who lost her husband and nearly watched her son leave for America now manages a sports apparel company that makes kits for the Punjab Ranji Trophy team and the Indian Railways cricket team.
He started the Harbhajan Singh Institute of Cricket in 2012. He tied up with Partap World School in Pathankot. Kids pay ₹5,000 to register and ₹2,500 per month. They get bowling machines from the UK. They get pitches that match international standards. They get visiting coaches.
The academy now has 50 kids. They come from villages. They wear white flannels. Some of them might play for Punjab. None of them will have to wash dishes in America. It is not a charity. It is a business. But it is also a door. For kids who need a path the way he needed one.
The Dhaba, the Talk Show and the Cricket Academy
He acted in a film. Bhaji in Problem in 2013. He played a police officer. Then he started Purple Rose Entertainment with his wife Geeta Basra. In 2025 they made a YouTube show called Who’s The Boss?
Rohit Sharma sat on that couch. Jasprit Bumrah sat there. Suryakumar Yadav too. IDFC FIRST Bank sponsored it. It is strange to watch a man who once screamed at Andrew Symonds now gently asking his friends about their wives. But people change. Or maybe they just find new stages for the same energy.
He put money into Univest. A fintech app. The company raised $12.4 million. Harbhajan says he uses it himself. He says he is not a natural investor. He needs help. That kind of honesty is rare among celebrities.
He also backed eBikeGo. An electric bike startup from Amritsar. They raised $7.28 million. During the 2020 lockdown, Harbhajan saw the Himalayas from Jalandhar for the first time because the air was clean. He said okay, let me put money into clean air.
That is how his mind works. A moment later he is looking at mountains he never knew existed, and the next moment he is writing a cheque.
He started BookMySports in 2015 with Akanksha Saxena and Sameer Thapa. An app to book grounds. He remembered growing up without places to play. He solved his own childhood problem.
He opened Bhajji Da Dhaba in 2009. A restaurant chain. The menu is simple. Dal makhani. Paneer tikka. Lassi. The kind of food his mother made when the factory was struggling. Because a man who loves rajma-chawal and gobhi paratha should own a dhaba. It would be unnatural if he did not.
In 2015, during India’s tour of Sri Lanka, he met the Sri Lankan Finance Minister. He explored cross-border business. Real estate. Hospitality. Sports trade. Imagine that. A boy from Daulatpuri in Jalandhar sitting with a finance minister in Colombo talking about hotels. Life is ridiculous if you let it be.
The House in Sector 9 and the Cars
He has a mansion in Chandigarh. Sector 9. 2,000 square yards. It has a private theatre with leather walls. A trophy room. A Victorian-style bedroom. A sports bar. A den filled with career memorabilia. It is worth maybe ₹7 crore. He sold his Mumbai apartment for ₹17.58 crore. Smart move. Mumbai is money. Chandigarh is home.
He owns a Mercedes-Benz GLS 350. A Hummer H2. A BMW X6. A BMW 520d that he got as a wedding gift from Geeta Basra. It sits in the garage next to the Hummer. A long way from the valve factory. A Ford Endeavour. A Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza. The total fleet is worth over ₹4.5 crore.
But here is the thing that keeps you awake at night. The boy who was ready to drive trucks in America for survival now owns a garage full of luxury cars. Life is not fair. Life is strange. Life is beautiful if you refuse to quit.
What the Numbers Miss
People ask what Harbhajan Singh is worth. The answer is somewhere around ₹70 crore to ₹83 crore. Approximately $9 million to $12.5 million. He makes ₹6 crore per year from commentary for Star Sports.
He gets ₹20 lakh to ₹40 lakh per brand campaign. Pepsi. Lay’s. Colgate. Muthoot Finance. Royal Stag. Movado. Captain Steel. Symphony Limited. Financial Express has not independently verified these numbers.
He has 17.5 million Instagram followers. He generates digital ad revenue. He has equity in startups. He has real estate. He has debt instruments.
He sits in the commentary box now. He makes ₹6 crore per year talking about the game that nearly threw him out.
But all of that is the wrong answer. The right answer is that he is worth the sum of every moment he refused to leave. The empty nets in Mohali. The hat-trick at Eden Gardens. The decision to stay in India when America was calling. The choice to bowl around the wicket to politics.
The Honest Accounting
Here is the thing that gets missed in profiles of former players who become businessmen. Harbhajan never had the luxury of failure being a philosophical exercise. When he nearly went to America in 2000, failure meant his sisters’ lives would have been different. His mother would have worked harder. The stakes were real and domestic and specific.
Everything since has been built with that knowledge underneath it. Every business decision, every political calculation, every endorsement, every pivot. Not reckless. Not cautious either.
Something in between that you only develop when you have been genuinely poor and genuinely afraid and you came out the other side because an injury happened to Anil Kumble at the right moment and you were ready when the call came.
He was ready because he had already decided, somewhere in those dark Jalandhar months, that he was going to be ready for whatever came next.
On July 3, 1980, a boy was born in Jalandhar who loved karate and hot jalebis. He became the Turbanator. Not because he was born special. But because he was born stubborn. And sometimes stubborn is enough.
Editorial Note: This is an independent profile. Mr. Harbahajan Singhand their representatives were contacted but did not respond prior to the time of publication. In the absence of direct comment, this article was reported using publicly available records and regulatory filings, where applicable. This content was produced in accordance with FinancialExpress.com’s editorial guidelines