On Wednesday night, Harshal Patel had not bowled a single ball until the 12th over – as he often does not. When he came on, Chennai Super Kings needed to score at 10.25 an over, with seven wickets in hand. At the crease were Devon Conway, in excellent touch, and Moeen Ali, ready to launch an onslaught. Harshal conceded 10, almost the same as the asking rate. Chennai won the battle.
When he resumed bowling after the strategic timeout, it was from the other end as well as from round the wicket, for Ravindra Jadeja had replaced Conway. Chennai needed 56 in five overs. They batted deep. It was a target within reach.
Harshal bowled length balls to a predominantly off-side field, varying his pace at will. The first three balls fetched a single. The fourth ball was on the middle stump. Moeen, having played two consecutive dot balls, went for the slog.
However, it was one of the slowest balls Harshal had bowled last night, at 124 kph. As cricket analyst Himanish Ganjoo established a couple of years ago, Harshal ‘gets more dip than other pacers on slower balls’:
Moeen was not the first batter to mistime a slower from Harshal. However, it was not close enough for Rajat Patidar to catch, and they ran two. Jadeja was not as lucky off the last ball, bowled at 127 kph well outside off. The attempted slog over long off did not clear the fielder.
Chennai needed 47 in three overs when Harshal began his next over. Moeen biffed the first ball over mid wicket for six. Then came the slower ball, well outside off, as everyone – Moeen included – had anticipated. Moeen stretched out for a ball that was too far and too slow to time: the ball ballooned to extra cover. The rest of the over fetched two singles.
Bowling the 16th and 18th overs, thus, Harshal returned 2-0-12-2, effectively deciding the match. He went for runs in the final over, but by then the match had been reduced to a formality.
Harshal had missed Bangalore’s previous match against Chennai this season. That night, Chennai were 86/2 after 12 overs. They blasted 133 off the last eight overs to reach 216/4 (including 71 in the last four), a total that turned out to be beyond Bangalore’s scope. Bangalore missed Harshal Patel, who had 12-2-52-5 from his three matches before he took a match off.
He returned for the next match, against Delhi Capitals. Bangalore had to defend 190 following a Dinesh Karthik onslaught. David Warner had taken Delhi to 57/1 after the Powerplay. Harshal was brought on to slow Delhi down. His first over went for five. He bowled another over, then returned at the death – bowling all four overs just when the Delhi batters were set for little but a slog. Bangalore won by 16 runs.
Bangalore’s dependence on Harshal was evident in 2021. He won the Purple Cap as well as the Most Valuable Player award. And yet, they did not retain him: ‘If we retain you, we’ll have to pay you six crore, and nine crore will be deducted out of our purse because you will be the fourth player. So, we don’t want to do that and we’d rather that you earn that money in the auction and we’ll try our best to get you back.’
Bangalore knew what they were doing. In 2021, they had got Harshal for INR 20 lakh. In 2021, they shelled out INR 10.75 crore for him – 53.75 times the 2021 amount.
Despite missing a match, Harshal has taken 13 wickets this season. If one combines the two seasons, he is far ahead of anyone else.
If the economy rate is on the higher side, it is because Harshal bowls largely in the death overs, the highest-scoring overs in a Twenty20 innings. Over half (23 out of 45) of Harshal’s wickets have come between overs 17 and 20.
There have been bowlers who have better strike rates, but almost none of them has bowled as frequently at the death. Over the two seasons, Harshal has bowled 94.2 overs, of which 39.2 (42%) have been in the last four overs.
That justifies his price tag more than anything else.
Abhishek Mukherjee is the Chief Editor at CricketNews and co-author of Sachin and Azhar at Cape Town.
Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, IPl Live Score UpdateLatest IPL Schedule 2022, and , IPl 2022 Points tableEntertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.