Haryana all-rounder Harshal Patel, who had a standout 2019-20 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, credited his turnaround to a piece of advice he received from former Australia captain Ricky Ponting, as well as to some learning from observing Virat Kohli.
Patel had an underwhelming 2018/19 Ranji Trophy, where nine matches yielded 23 wickets. He was also captain for a part of the season, after regular skipper Mohit Sharma was laid low by a back injury. But Haryana’s unfavourable results through the season compounded Patel’s own struggles with form.
He has since put that behind and also fought back from a torn glute to not only strike with the ball, but also show his capabilities with the bat, as a pinch-hitter in T20 cricket. And it was during his time with Delhi Capitals at the 2019 IPL, when he came back from the glute injury, that he was spoken to by Ricky Ponting.
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“Ricky told me that I was brilliant at preparation but needed to get better at performance,” Patel told ESPNcricinfo. “That sort of cleared things for me because I always felt I was pretty confident in practice but probably 10% less confident in the match. On the field, I was getting worried about not being able to execute my plans.
“He talked about visualising what might happen in the game and going through those scenarios in the head. If you are prepared for all those scenarios, then you are more likely to succeed and not succumb to the pressure.”
Patel topped both the runs and wickets charts for Haryana in the T20 season. His 19 wickets were eight clear of the next best Sumit Kumar, while his 374 runs were almost a hundred better than the second-placed batsman.
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While he made those runs at a strike-rate of 165, the values of running hard between the wickets weren’t lost on Patel, and in fact helped him achieve those impressive numbers.
“If you see what he [Kohli] does, it is pretty exceptional,” Patel said. “Where there is a single, you try for two, where there is a double, you push for three. If you are fit enough and can do that over a period of, say, five, seven, ten overs, you end up adding probably another eight to ten runs to your tally.
“Now that is a massive, massive margin. That’s a margin of victory and defeat. That’s something I have incorporated into my game.”
