Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar has showered praises on Harshal Patel as he bowled another good spell to restrict power hitters of the West Indies in the death overs in the first match of the T20I series. Making his debut against New Zealand last year, he picked 6 wickets in 3 T20I matches.
Last week Royal Challengers Bangalore got him a price of 10.75 Crores Rs at the IPL mega auction. Notable he was the Purple Cap winner in the last season when he claimed 32 wickets in 15 matches with an economy of 8.14. It was the record for any Indian bowler in a single IPL season.
Harshal Patel was the ‘Purple Cap’ winner last season
Gavaskar lauded the 31-year old pacer as he said he deserves every penny he’s earned. Gavaskar felt that Harshal reinvented himself with age as he developed multiple variations in his bowling. He pointed out that he got a good slower ball and bowls a pinpoint yorker. With so many variations, batters would want to avoid him, opined Sunil Gavaskar.
“Look he deserves every penny, every rupee that he’s earned at the auction. He put in a fabulous performance last year. And the best part about Harshal Patel is how he has reinvented himself. Earlier, he was a bowler batters were looking to face because he hardly had any change of pace. He was being taken for a lot of runs.
“He is learning from it, he has improved from that. Now, he is the bowler that batters do not want to face because they don’t know what he is going to bowl,” Gavaskar spoke to Star Sports.
Harshal Patel made his IPL debut in 2012 and so far picked 78 wickets in 63 matches with an economy of 8.58.
“He has got a very good yorker. He has got a slower bouncer. He has got a delivery that skids along quite nicely so he has got the works and he knows when to use it because of the experience he has had playing in the IPL for the last few years. He has only got better every year,” added Gavaskar.