NEWSHarshal Patel was the star of the show on the opening night of the Indian Premier League as he bowled one of the finest death overs spell ever bowled to scalp three Mumbai wickets on the 20th over of the innings while conceding just one run.
Having played ahead of Navdeep Saini, the pressure was enormous on him but the clarity of thought endured for a memorable performance that helped RCB secure their first win of the tournament. Revealing his approach, the Haryana all-rounder stated that he likes to take one game at a time for the pendulum of the IPL changes thick and fast that one could never be complacent.
"You always want to start well. That leaves a massive impact on how you go about in the coming games. In IPL, it's a pendulum, things can change very quickly for good and for bad. All you have to do is focus on your planning and execution, take one game at a time, don't get overconfident,” Harshal said in the post-match press conference.
“At the same time, if you have a bad day at the field, you can't get too depressed. You have to move on from these situations very quickly.”
For Haryana in domestic cricket, Harshal has been a mainstay, having become their major all-rounder in recent years. While his variations and slower balls have helped him in that regard, his responsibility for RCB in the opening encounter was contrastingly different. Harshal admitted that he is learning how to better the yorkers that can make him an effective death bowler in the long run.
"The Chennai pitch definitely suited my kind of bowling," he admitted. "That was the reason why Virat left my three overs at the death. When the ball got older, it started reversing a bit and when the ball started reversing, it was easier to execute your yorkers. I know my slower balls have been my main strength for almost 10 years now.
"Yorker is something I'm working on. I'm happy that I was able to execute that. If you're bowling in the death overs, you need to rely a little bit on the yorkers. You can't just keep bowling length balls and slower balls, people are going to line up to that. So it's important to have that one delivery which can get the batsman off the strike. It can give you options.
"I've been bowling yorkers for a long time but I wasn't confident to take that into the game. But now, in the last 15-20 days, I put myself in situations where I have to bowl yorkers and I'm now really confident," the all-rounder, who was traded from Delhi Capitals to Royal Challengers Bangalore, added.
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