Indian pacer Harshal Patel revealed how prudent advice from former left-arm quick Zaheer Khan turned his career around as he enjoyed his most fruitful Indian Premier League season this year and went on to make his national T20I debut.
Harshal picked up a whopping 32 wickets in the 2021 edition of the IPL for Royal Challengers Bangalore with an economy rate of 8.14. Came to be fondly known as Purple Patel for bagging the purple cap as the league’s top wicket-taker, Harshal went on to make his international debut against New Zealand.
Playing matches in Ranchi and Kolkata in the recent T20I series, he bagged figures of 2/25 and 2/26 to push India to a 3-0 whitewash over the tourists.
But before this great run, Harshal wasn’t always this good a T20 bowler, whose dipping and drifting slower balls have made it very difficult for batters to hit him over at the death. And the bowler believes it is the advice that he received from Indian great Zaheer that brought about the change in his fortunes.
Back in the day, when Harshal was still playing for Delhi Capitals, he had an interaction with Zaheer at the sidelines of an IPL game versus Mumbai Indians. Zaheer, who is the Director of Cricket at the mighty successful MI franchise, spotted a chink in Harshal’s armoury and told him to correct it immediately.
“When I was with DC and we were playing MI, I got a chance to speak with Zaheer bhai. I have this massive problem of my deliveries drifting down the leg stump, and I spoke to him about it.
He spotted an issue with my release angle. With my angle, if I pitch the ball on the off-stump, it will automatically drift to the leg stump,”
Harshal told The Indian Express.
“The release angle should target the sixth or seventh stump line and then the ball will hit the off stump, he advised me. A small tip made a massive difference in my consistency and changed me as a bowler,”
he added.
Part of India’s T20I set-up now, Harshal will be hoping to make each of his opportunities count and be part of the next T20 World Cup in a year’s time in Australia.
