New Delhi: Harshal Patel loves Bob Dylan. Be it Dylan’s most political song, “Masters of War,” in the backdrop of the Vietnam War, or “Mr. Tambourine Man,” he can play those on his guitar. He relates most to “Blowing in the Wind,” and the line that hits him the most is, “How many roads must a man walk down, before you call him a man?”
Like Dylan’s songs, there is a music to Harshal’s bowling as well. His strides into the crease are rhythmic, the unhurried gather and release, and the note-perfect release of his deliveries. The curl, the dip, the swerve, the cutters, and the change of pace he produces have disguised the best in world cricket. He was once told by AB de Villiers that he finds him the toughest to put away.
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On Friday night at Chepauk, he managed to outsmart some of the cleanest strikers of the game, plucking 4/28, and returned with the player-of-the-match award. The 34-year-old wily customer has been the lone bright spot in Sunrisers’ dismal season. He has picked up 13 wickets in eight matches so far.
There are few bowlers who have mastered the art of disguising batters with their variations. Lasith Malinga was a natural at that because of his slinging action. Jasprit Bumrah, too, is blessed with a unique action. Dwayne Bravo acquired it over time. And like the Trinidadian, Harshal Patel, too, has bagged a handful of wickets with his slower ones and cutters.
Harshal, who has been entrusted with death-bowling duties by all the franchises, has never backed down from the fight. He has been taken to the cleaners. The most notable instance was Ravindra Jadeja smoking him for 37 runs in an over, including five sixes. It came in the season he ended the league with 32 wickets, joint most with Dwayne Bravo for most wickets in any season.
Since 2021, Harshal Patel has picked up 102 wickets in 66 matches, the most by any bowler in the IPL. His Haryana teammate Yuzvendra Chahal is second-best with 93 scalps. Patel was pivotal for RCB from 2021 to 2023, picking up 65 wickets in 43 games, but was released. The seamer was roped in by Punjab Kings for ₹11.75 crore and delivered with 24 wickets in IPL 2024, but the Mohali-based franchise decided to release him as well.
Harshal Patel’s cricket sojourn has been topsy-turvy. After years of domestic grind, the former India U-19 cricketer was among those picked in 2021 by the Indian selectors as the they moved away from India’s archaic approach in T20Is. He, alongside Suryakumar Yadav, Rahul Chahar, and Varun Chakravarthy, were among those drafted by then chairman of selectors Chetan Sharma to bring a fresh approach to India’s T20I cricket. While Surya is now India’s T20 captain, Varun has recently made his comeback, but Rahul Chahar and Patel never saw consistent opportunities.
Patel’s bowling is conducive to low and slow pitches. In the 2021 World T20 in Dubai, he was initially drafted as a net bowler. But soon he became a regular and in the span of fifteen months from November 2021 to January 2023, he played 25 matches for India in T20Is and picked up 29 wickets before being left in the cold by the selectors.
Over the years, he has churned out one death-over masterclass after another, but he has never been the one to consistently receive unwavering support. Patel has had an eventful journey, one laden with rejection and dejection, doubts and setbacks, but from which he emerged stronger every time.
Right from a young age, he has found it tough. He was 17 when he, along with his parents, moved to the United States. His father used to work ‘six and a half days a week and had his own share of struggles in a foreign country.
“I used to work at this Pakistani guy’s perfume store in Elizabeth, New Jersey. I used to get paid $35 a day. I couldn’t speak a word of English because I had studied in a Gujarati medium throughout,” he once said on the show Breakfast with Champions.
Poll
Do you believe Harshal Patel will get another chance in the upcoming T20 World Cup?
With the next T20 World Cup happening in India and Sri Lanka, where the surfaces will suit Harshal’s bowling, it would be interesting to see whether he will get another chance or not. But Harshal Patel is a lesson to all those who give up on sports all too easily. For long, he was thrust into the wilderness but retooled his game to bounce back and seize his day, like he did in Chennai on Friday night.
