Harshal Patel registered his maiden Indian Premier League (IPL) hat-trick in the clash against Mumbai Indians (MI). Patel’s hat-trick wickets included the wickets of T20 stars Hardik Pandya, Kieron Pollard followed by tailender Rahul Chahar. The purple cap-holder became the third Royal Challengers Bangalore’s (RCB) after Parveen Kumar (2010) and Samuel Badree (2017).
“I was thinking if the batters can't pick my slower balls then the bowlers also will find it difficult to spot (referring to the hat-trick scalp). I just bet on that. This is my sixth time being on a hat-trick and finally got one, so pretty happy,” Patel said after the match.
“He (Pollard) is somebody who can do damage if you bowl in his areas, we wanted to take him wide and then once you drag him wide you have the option to bluff him, that came off really well,” he added.
Patel finished with four wickets for 17 runs in 3.1 overs he bowled. The pacer got the wicket of Adam Milne to wrap up MI’s run chase with 11 balls still to go. The 54-run win over defending champions helped RCB give a major boost to their net run rate.
Patel has taken 23 wickets in the ongoing season from 10 games, way ahead of the second-highest wicket-taker Avesh Khan who has 15 wickets from same number of matches. The 30-year-old has an impressive bowling average of 13.56. He also picked up a five-wicket haul against MI in their first clash of the season. He also equalled Yuzvendra Chahal's record of 23 wickets in a season for an uncapped player and is poised to surpass it with plenty of matches to go.
