Harshal Patel deserves every penny earned at the IPL auction: Sunil Gavaskar

A lot of eyebrows were raised when Harshal Patel triggered an immense bidding war among the franchises. He was eventually bought by the RCB team for a whopping amount of INR 10.75 crore. And former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar feels the pacer deserves that amount. Harshal bowled the tough overs for India in the first T20I against West Indies and he seemed to have mastered the art of death bowling from the last IPL season.

It has been an excellent start for Harshal in the three T20Is he has played so far in the international circuit. The Haryana pacer had a lot of tricks in his bag including the slow off cutters and the odd yorkers as well making it very difficult for the West Indies batters to go after him. He finished with the figures of 2 for 37 in his four overs spell and was quite effective, particularly in the death overs, where the Indian pacers have gone for plenty in the last few years.

‘Harshal has only got better’ – Sunil Gavaskar

Gavaskar explained that Harshal Patel is worth the price he went for in the mega auction and noted how he has transformed himself over the years in terms of being very clever and executing his slower ones. He was delighted to see the growth of the 31-year-old and underlined the threat he could possess the opponent batters.

“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 told Star Sports.

The former India cricketer also pointed out Harshal’s abilities to deliver the yorker and slower bouncers consistently in the death overs and reckoned that the IPL experiences have brought the best out of him since last season. The right-arm medium pacer was the highest wicket-taker in IPL 2021 with 32 wickets in 15 games and bagged the purple cap.

“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,” he added.