IPL 2009 News & Updates | IPL 2009 Videos Highlights, match dates and timings

Former Australia captain Steve Waugh feels that Harbhajan Singh paid the price for overstepping his line and was fortunate to have got a light punishment for that.

Ripping apart Harbhajan Singh for courting controversies regularly, former Australia captain Steve Waugh today said the offie was fortunate to have escaped with a minimum 11-match ban for slapping his India teammate S. Sreesanth. Terming Harbhajan Singh's indiscretion during an Indian Premier League match last week as 'unfortunate', Waugh said the offie paid the "price for overstepping the line".

"It's very unfortunate and not what you want to see. I think Harbhajan overstepped his line. He paid the price. I think he is a lot fortunate to have got 11 games," Waugh told newspersons on a visit to 'Udayan', a home for children of leprosy patients which he has been funding for the last eight years.

Waugh also had a word of advice for Harbhajan. "He has been controversial on a number of occasions. Now he should look at his own game and start playing cricket and not worry about other issues." He said the ongoing IPL, despite being a business venture, had the potential to help spread the game in unchartered territories like China and Malaysia and praised Board of Control for Cricket in India for drawing new spectators to cricket.

Waugh, however, felt Test cricket was 'supreme', as "at the end of the day, cricket is a game one wants to play for the country. Test cricket will survive the onslaught of market economy." On the England and Wales Cricket Board not allowing their players to take part in the cash-rich IPL, Waugh said no cricket board could afford to ignore the Twenty20 game. "I think the ECB will find a way so that their players are able to play in the IPL."