Harshal Patel : The New Bowling Masterclass.
Harshal Patel is journey of A cricketer who was born in Gujarat and plays for Haryana in domestic Cricket. He is a very hardworking man and have improved his game a lot in recent times. He had won Purple Cap In IPL 2021, did a debut for India and have been doing good so far.
Figures of 2/25 from four overs on debut had been an achievement to savour. It also earned Harshal the Man of the Match award in the second T20I in Ranchi. One of the standout features of his bowling was how he used the crease – bowling away-goers from wide of it and bringing the ball into the batsmen from close to the stumps. Taking the pace off the ball served him well.
Harshal is not a 140kph bowler. To make up for that, he needed to load his bowling with variations to graduate to the international level. Slower bouncers, variations in yorkers and cutters became his staple. Using the crease to optimum effect came naturally to him.
“Angles have always been a big part of my game and I use them to good effect. I think that’s another thing I realised that I can add to my repertoire without trying too many different things,” the medium pacer said at the post-match presser.
Even as a teenager, he was ‘playing’ with the angles – bowling outswingers on the fourth stump line from wide of the crease. When he went close to the stumps, despite having his front toe pointing towards first slip, he brought the ball into the batsmen. Back then, Harshal was too young to understand the dynamics or physics of the whole thing. But the trained eye of Ashwani Kumar, director coaching of Haryana Cricket, spotted the speciality.
“He wasn’t aware of it and at that age, you actually don’t care. But there’s something special in his bowling that he can bowl late outswing from wide of the crease and inswing from close to the stumps despite not having the perfect alignment at the time of loading and release. The alignment of his left shoulder and front ankle is not what you would call a copybook and it makes his action a tad injury-prone as well. But the ability to use the crease is natural and all I did was a bit of fine-tuning,” Kumar, who also runs the Shri Ramnarayan Cricket Club in Rohtak, said.
Harshal’s journey hasn’t been linear. He played for India U-19 from Gujarat, but wasn’t considered good enough to represent the state team at first-class level and eventually migrated to Haryana after 2009. Kumar readily spotted the potential.
Mastering the dipping yorker
There are few bowlers who have mastered the art of dipping yorker. Lasith Malinga was one, a natural at that because of his slinging action. Dwayne Bravo acquired it over time. Patel too has bagged a handful of wickets with his slow dipping yorkers.
“I always had the slower ball. Dipping yorker came out after toiling a lot in the Ranji Trophy on flat pitches,” he says.
He explains the nuance: “If you are getting swing, you get a very good backspin on it. It allows the ball to cut through the air and swing. The same concept applies to off-cutters and the slower yorkers. If you see my hat-trick wicket ball against Hardik (Pandya) in Dubai, it was a half-volley. But because of the back spin, it got stuck into the pitch and bounced and he top-edged it. If there was no back spin, he could have hit it easily.”
He aims to bowl it quickly. “I aim to bowl it quickly. My arm-speed should be faster than my normal deliveries and then the second thing is to put as much revolution on the ball as possible. My slower ball are my efforts ball,” he adds. In his Interview to Indian Express.
Behind Harshal Patel’s death-over metal is music of a subtler variety. Patel’s has been an eventful journey, one laden with rejection and dejection, doubts and setbacks, but from one which he emerged stronger to blossom late with a little inspiration from Dylan songs.
There is music to Harshal Patel’s bowling. The rhythmic strides into crease, the unhurried gather and release, and the note-perfect riffs of his deliveries. The music he produces with the ball is a fusion of cricket’s subtle tones—curl, dip, swerve, cut, and change of pace. For batsmen last IPL, those were deathly tunes, as he ended the league with 33 wickets, joint most with Dwayne Bravo for most wickets in any season.
It must have been huge when Royal Challengers Bangalore made you their designated death bowler? ( in an interview of ESPN cricinfo)
"Absolutely. Until 2017, I played as a back-up. If they felt the wicket was slow or the ground was big, I'd get a game. Even if I did well, I'd be dropped for the next few games. So that was an opportunity for me to put into action the plans I had to become a valuable player. Honestly, I didn't expect it to happen, but they must have seen something in me to give me such a massive responsibility. It could have also backfired for them if I'd not done what I did. They took a punt on me and fortunately I was in that space mentally, physically and skill-wise to take on that responsibility."
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Nicely written.
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