Royal Challengers Bangalore Harshal Patel on Sunday bowled a spell to remember against Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 match no. 39 in Dubai. The leading wicket-taker of the ongoing season bagged a hat-trick, that helped Kohli & Co bundle out the defending champions for 111 and win the game by 54 runs.
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It was a surreal experience for Harshal who has been in a rich vein of form this season. In RCB’s previous clash against MI, the right-arm quick scalped five wickets and on Sunday, he simply altered the record books of the league. After the game ended, Harshal said it will take some for the feeling of taking a hat-trick to sink in as he took it for the very first time in his career.
“For me personally, I feel pretty good. I am being able to execute my skills. In terms of the team, we are not looking at the points table because if you do, your mind sort of goes away from the process. The difficult thing for us was to overcome this inertia of two losses which we have done in this game and we want to continue with this momentum and we want to play this brand of cricket consistently,” said Harshal during a virtual post-match press conference.
{{/usCountry}}“For me personally, I feel pretty good. I am being able to execute my skills. In terms of the team, we are not looking at the points table because if you do, your mind sort of goes away from the process. The difficult thing for us was to overcome this inertia of two losses which we have done in this game and we want to continue with this momentum and we want to play this brand of cricket consistently,” said Harshal during a virtual post-match press conference.
{{/usCountry}}“First-time ever I have a taken a hat-trick in my life, I had not done this even in a school game. In IPL, I have been on hat-tricks six times and this is the first time I have gotten it. It will take some time to sink in,” he added.
Harshal removed Hardik Pandya, Kieron Pollard and Rahul Chahar to complete his hat-trick. Out of these three, the bowler termed the dismissal of the Caribbean all-rounder ‘very satisfactory’. Explaining the reason begins his gratification, Harshal said,
“The game dictates different things, I try to bowl slower balls more at Sharjah as compared to Abu Dhabi and Dubai because of the nature of the wicket. Whatever the situation demands, I do that.”
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“The wicket of Kieron Pollard was very satisfactory because it was a bluff, in the meeting we had planned, that you can set him up by bowling wide and then you can bowl a yorker at his heels which he might miss. Rather than bowling fast-paced yorkers at his heel, I bowled a slower one. My aim is always to have a positive impact with ball and bat, irrespective of which team I always play for,” he added.