Former India off-spinner Harbhajan Singh has taken aim at his old foes again, saying Australia has produced great players, but that those players are “very bad losers”.

Harbhajan played a big part in India’s most famous victory against Australia, in the 2001 Eden Gardens Test. He took a hat-trick in the first innings, and then returned six further wickets in the second as India battled to victory despite following on at one stage.

However, with the clip of his hat-trick doing the rounds on Twitter, doubts have been raised in some quarters about the legitimacy of the wickets, with Mark Waugh saying earlier this week that the dismissal of Adam Gilchrist in the first innings was the worst umpiring decision he’d seen.

Harbhajan, however, was having none of it. “We now see some people say on Twitter that Gilchrist was not out,” he told R Ashwin on an Instagram live. “So what if he was not out? How many times have I got him out? If not the first ball, I could have got him out on the second ball.”

He went on to suggest Australians took defeat in that Test particularly hard. given how dominant they were at one stage. “Australians are … they produced a lot of great players but are very bad losers,” he said.

“When it comes to losing a match from that situation … where they were, it must have given them a hard, hard time. That’s Australia for you. When they bowl, they feel everything is out. When they are facing it, they feel they are not out. They were not really happy about most of the decisions.”

Where were you when @harbhajan_singh took this memorable hat-trick?pic.twitter.com/Z3iww5X7Kw

?️ @Zohaib1981

— Wisden India (@WisdenIndia) May 1, 2020

Harbhajan also made it a point to call out Glenn McGrath, whose reaction after losing his wicket, which sealed the win for India, didn’t go down well. “It was straight in line, it was going to spin as well,” said Harbhajan.

“I think if I see that now, with DRS, it would have hit the stumps for sure. But that’s McGrath for you. These things happen on the field. We have to accept it as a player. We don’t need to keep on crying about it.”