Harshal Patel, after Royal Challengers Bangalore’s 14-run win over Lucknow Super Giants, didn’t greet the opposition with the hand he injured previous week. Playing the Gujarat Titans in RCB’s last league game, the pacer had to walk off the field after hurting his webbing. It was his bowling hand. 

Patel’s participation in the eliminator against Lucknow was doubtful. But he wanted to step up, skipper Faf du Plessis revealed. And the way he did stunned many. With a not fully recovered right hand, the 31-year-old delivered four key overs, two of them in the death, to take RCB home. 

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Harshal Patel was brought into the attack immediately after the strategic time-out – in the 10th over. LSG were 84/2 with KL Rahul and Deepak Hooda at the crease. The pacer created the first chance on the third ball of his spell, when Hasaranga almost pulled off a stunner at the ropes. The over went for five runs. His second went for four. 

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Patel was then brought into the attack in the 18th. Lucknow needed 41 runs in 18 balls. Rahul was changing gears. Stoinis was at the other end. The bowler went around the stumps. The first two balls were wides, second one running to the fence. But he came back strong with slower bouncers. Two dots and Stoinis was under pressure. The Aussie smashed a shorter, outside off delivery and ended up finding the man at deep cover. Patel’s next over went for nine runs. 

He finished with figures of 25/1. “Harshal is the joker in the pack. A special card I can pick. He bowls the important overs. Second last one over from him changed the game for us,” du Plessis praised him after the win. 

“Whether I would be able to deliver or not, I don’t really know, I can’t say. But I want to be in those situations, there is no doubt about that,” Patel said.

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“I have been wanting to do that for the past two-three years, I have been doing that for Haryana, and I wanted to do it at the bigger stage and I will continue to put myself in those situations, sometimes it is going to come off, sometimes it is not going to come off.

Harshal Patel had bagged 21 wickets for RCB last season. He has once again been their bowling backbone and has 19 wickets from 15 matches in this IPL.

“I knew that the majority of my deliveries would be slower balls on this sort of a wicket, because as soon as you gave pace, the wicket made it easy to hit,” he said.