‘Need to bowl smartly in death overs’

Even with India fast bowler Varun Aaron and Sreenath Arvind in the ranks, pacer Harshal Patel has cemented his spot in the Royal Challengers Bangalore line-up for the last two seasons.

With a huge victory to open the ninth edition, the Haryana quick is eager to contribute to the team’s success. “The team goal is to win the IPL. My personal goal is, like I did against Sunrisers Hyderabad, is repeat such performances and obviously get better on it,” said the 25-year-old.

With the Bengaluru deck usually batting friendly, the Haryana cricketer admitted it was a challenge. “It’s a challenge to bowl on this ground because 180-190 is a par score here. The margin of error is very less and like our slogan says ‘Play Bold’ and we just go out there and try and back our skills every day and plan according to what has worked on this ground and just back ourselves to execute it.”

Harshal believes missing the injured Mitchell Starc is a huge blow this season and his presence last year gave the young pacers a chance to learn a lot.

“He is a very big miss because everybody knows what he can do during the Powerplay and at the death as well. Obviously him being around gives a lot of confidence,” the former Gujarat cricketer said.

The Sanand-born Harshal had an average domestic season but it turned out to be a learning experience. And he now wants to execute those plans in the IPL.

“To be honest, I had an average season this year but worked really hard. And I have learnt a lot. Now, I’m trying to bring that learning experience into what I’m doing right now.”

With batsmen being crafty like Sarfaraz Khan during the death overs, Harshal felt that the bowlers usually had brain-freeze moments. “Sometimes, what happens is that somebody plays those shots and you’ve not seen anybody play like that before. Then your mind kind of freezes at that moment. You can’t get yourself out of it. I guess that’s what happened to the bowlers that day.”