One of the most important attributes to be a successful death overs bowler in T20 cricket is to embrace the pressure and the Royal Challengers Bangalore medium pacer Harshal Patel has done it with some success.
Patel had bagged the Purple cap in the previous season of the IPL with 32 scalps and once again he has been right on the money for RCB in Tata IPL 2022.
Patel was given the tough job of defending 41 runs in the last three overs against Lucknow Super Giants by RCB captain Faf du Plessis at Eden Gardens, Kolkata on Wednesday. In front of him were a dangerous Marcus Stoinis and a well-settled KL Rahul.
After conceding six wides without even bowling a single legal ball, the pressure was on Harshal Patel in the 18th over. However, he conceded only two more runs in his over and also accounted for Marcus Stoinis.
Josh Hazlewood then bowled a good over as he dismissed KL Rahul and Krunal Pandya in the penultimate over. Patel then had 23 runs in the bank and he spent only nine runs to finish the game for RCB and took them to a 14-run victory.
Harshal Patel said at a post-match conference: “Whether I will be able to deliver or not, I don’t know, but I want to be in those situations; there’s no doubt about that. I’ve been wanting to do that for the past two-three years. I’ve been doing it for Haryana. I want to do it at the biggest stage, and I’ll continue to put myself in those situations.”
He continued: “Sometimes, it’s going to come off; sometimes it won’t. There will be games I will end up losing for the team, and I’m okay with that as long as I don’t shy away from these challenges.”
In fact, Harshal Patel had split his right-hand webbing in the previous match against GT and thus had bowled only one over. Patel had to take stitches but revealed he recovered fully before the knockout game against LSG.
“Luckily, I didn’t have to make any changes to my skill, because the skin superficially has healed quite well. So I was able to bowl my slower balls, I was able to bowl whatever I wanted to bowl. We tried everything in practice yesterday.”
RCB will now face Rajasthan Royals in the second qualifier at Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad on Friday.
