Kolkata: Notwithstanding a hand injury, Royal Challengers Bangalore pacer Harshal Patel bowled superbly, particularly at the death, to vanquish Lucknow Super Giants in the IPL eliminator here on Wednesday, and then said he focused on his head lengths and mixed them up with the slower ones to restrict the rival batsmen.
"I thought about focusing more on my hard lengths and mixing it up with the slower one. My hard lengths have gone at seven and a half per over, so it has worked out well.
"I had a plan to bowl wide to (Marcus) Stoinis but it didn't come off well. It worked against (Liam) Livingstone against Punjab but not today. So I went back to what worked for me," Patel said after finishing with figures of 4-0-25-1. He turned the match in the 18th over when he conceded only eight runs while picking up Stoinis.
Patel had split the webbing on his right hand against Gujarat Titans (GT) and could not finish his overs. In that game in Mumbai, asked about the injury, he said "It has healed superficially but there's an issue inside. It is a bit sore every time I stretch my thumb". (UNI)