Harshal Patel was not retained by his franchise Royal Challengers Bangalore despite giving his all. The 31-year-old became a purple cap holder, and also mastered bowling those slow yorkers, which made him a street-smart bowler. But then IPL is a different animal altogether. Asked about his reaction to not being retained, Patel said coach Mike Hesson informed him about the decision, terming him “purse management”.
“When I was not retained, Mike Hesson (RCB director of cricket) called me and said, it was mainly purse management. They would obviously love to have me back in the team and I would also obviously love to go back and play for the team because RCB and this season (2021) changed my entire career and my entire life. However, in terms of auction, I have not heard from any franchise yet,” Patel told the cricketer.
Surely, he would like to don the red jersey once again as it was RCB that turned him into a prolific death bowler. He said that RCB must have done their homework while buying him as he had never bowled in the death overs.
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“I had never bowled a death over in the IPL before the 2021 season. So, when they (RCB) traded me (Delhi Capitals), they had done their homework. He probably saw the material in me to be a good death bowler and he said: “We want you to take that responsibility and we will support you to do so.” So, it came from them. I didn’t expect that to happen.”
He had a stellar IPL run which included a half-century against Mumbai Indians, but then he lost a bit of momentum, where he was dismissed for 37 by Ravindra Jadeja in the match against CSK. He said that one should not take oneself too seriously in professional sports.
He said, ‘One thing you learn after 11 years in professional sport is that you can’t take anything too seriously. As if you start taking these things too seriously, it will be very difficult to keep up. Yes, I made some mistakes (in that over). I didn’t execute what I wanted and the batsman (Ravindra Jadeja) had a great day. If he had an average day, he might have missed a day or two. So, I had a very bad day as I could not bowl a single yorker and he fell on every ball.
“So, you need to accept, take it in your stride and move on. You understand very quickly that it was an error in execution. I didn’t suddenly become a bad bowler because I took three wickets before that over. So, my skill was always there, it was just a matter of execution.”
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