'I want to be in those situations' - Harshal on bowling at the death

Pressure can be an athlete's biggest opponent. On a humid night where initially 'Kalbaisakhi' threatened to play spoilsport at Eden Gardens, Rajat Patidar conquered pressure on the big stage and ended up with a spellbinding 54-ball 112. Patidar had the answers for almost everything that Lucknow Super Gians threw at him - hard lengths to facing spin, as he laid the platform for Royal Challengers Bangalore's 14-run victory in the Eliminator round against Lucknow Super Giants. Incidentally, Patidar had compiled only 71 runs in IPL 2021. He subsequently remained unsold in the IPL auction. It was only when Luvnith Sisodia got injured that RCB decided to replace him with Patidar. His RCB team-mate Harshal Patel heaped praises on the batter and observed that when he joined the set-up as a replacement, he looked 'determined' to erase his past failures and make an impact for the franchise. "The way he played, I don't need to say anything about that, we have been seeing this calibre of batting in practice games. Even last year when he was with us, he got a few opportunities but couldn't do justice to his talent, but we knew he was a special player," Harshal said in the post match presser. "And even when he came in as a replacement this year, he looked very determined. He is kind of an introvert and goes about his business quietly but we knew the kind of contributions he can make for the team. Exceptionally proud of Rajat... all of us in the team, hopefully he can play a couple more knocks like this," he added. Harshal himself had to overcome a pressure-cooker situation in the slog overs. In the 18th over, the seasoned campaigner found himself at the edge of a cliff as he gave away six wides (it included five wides off one ball). At that time, he still hadn't bowled his first legitimate delivery of the over. Harshal then decided to bang it short and also mix up his pace to keep the runs in check. LSG could add only two more to their total in that over and also lost the wicket of Marcus Stoinis. "First of all, yes, I was nervous, there is no doubt about that. If you are defending 34 off 18 balls, then you're going to be nervous around it, but I knew when I gave away six runs without bowling a ball... gave away those wides, I knew that the wide yorker won't work. So I thought what worked for me in the first two overs, I want to go back to that and give myself the best opportunity to get KL (Rahul) and Stoinis out. Fortunately, I got Stoinis out at the boundary. "Whenever in their bowling when they bowled short or slower balls, it wasn't coming nicely on to the bat, so that was a clue that I want to bowl short and into the pitch... slow as I can. And then mix it up with a good yorker, good hard length ball. But 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." Since the last season, Harshal has been RCB's go-to man in the end overs. His value to the side can be gauged by the fact that he bagged 21 scalps in that period last season. This season too he has been one of RCB's mainstays and has 19 scalps to his name. Moreover, he seems to have the mental strength to overcome pressure-cooker situations and bowl the 'tough' overs at the back-end of an innings. Harshal said that he always wanted to test himself under pressure by bowling in the slog overs. "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 and I have been wanting to do that for the past 2-3 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. There will be games where I will end up losing for the team and I am okay with that as long as I don't shy away from challenges." Meanwhile, LSG paid the price for dropping a slew of catches (three fluffed chances), with Patidar and Dinesh Karthik getting the reprieves. There is an old saying in cricket - "Catches win matches." KL Rahul, who lamented about those fluffed chances, could be thinking about the aforementioned phrase for a while. "It is very hard to pinpoint one thing. Skill-wise, you can have a bad day, you can go wrong with your execution with bat and ball. "But something that let us down really badly is our fielding, we dropped some easy catches. I dropped DK when he was batting probably in single-digit, Patidar got dropped when he was 60, 70. So dropping them cost us that extra 30-40 runs. We fought really hard, we tried to chase down the target to the best of our ability," he reckoned. Rahul composed a fine 58-ball 79, but for most of his innings, he struggled to hit top gear. Rahul admitted that LSG could have pressed the accelerator a little more in the middle phase of the innings. Rahul also gave credit to Harshal for taking pace off the ball and keeping the runs down in the middle overs. "Yes, now looking back, it was just about two big hits in the middle overs that could have gotten us over the line. And it is not that we didn't try to hit those fours and sixes, we were trying but in the middle they bowled really well. I think Harshal's two overs in the middle was what pushed us back a little bit, because he went 2 overs for 7 or 8 runs, he didn't give away much, he really changed his pace well, he bowled to field, that is where we were pushed back a little bit."