IPL 2021, RR vs RCB: Harshal Patel On The Cusp Of Huge Bowling Milestone

Royal Challengers Bangalore will be looking to consolidate their position in the points table when they take on Rajasthan Royals in a crucial Indian Premier League (IPL 2021) match on Wednesday in Dubai. RCB have 12 points from 10 matches and a victory will take them one step closer to the play-offs. If Rajasthan come out on top, then there will be three teams tied on 10 points and RCB’s advantage over the chasing pack will be down to just 2 points. But Virat Kohli’s men have been in great form off late with the skipper leading from the front. Kohli needs another half-century to make it a hat-trick of fifty-plus scores. The likes of Glenn Maxwell and Devdutt Padikkal too have fired in the UAE leg and so has the lead spinner Yuzvendra Chahal.

The biggest surprise package for RCB this season has been the bowling of Harshal Patel. The medium pacer was in the form his life in the India leg and continued in the same fashion in the last match as he picked up a hat-trick against two-time defending champions Mumbai Indians to give his team a much-needed win.

Patel’s performance in the last match has now taken him to the cusp of a huge record. He has picked up 23 wickets in the tournament so far in 10 matches. He needs just one more wicket to become the RCB bowler with the most wickets in a single IPL edition. Currently, he jointly holds that record with Yuzvendra Chahal and Vinay Kumar. Chahal had picked up 23 wickets in 15 matches in the 2015 season, while Vinay Kumar had achieved the feat in 16 matches in 2013.

RCB bowler Harshal Patel has been in top form this season.

Patel has an average of 13.56 in 10 matches and he has been picking up a wicket in less than 10 balls this season. On Sunday, the RCB bowler dismissed Hardik Pandya, Kieron Pollard and Rahul Chahar in three successive balls in the 17th over to achieve this amazing feat.

It all started with Patel bowling a brilliant cutter to Pandya, who was caught by RCB skipper Virat Kohli. The pacer then again bowled a cutter which snuck past Pollard’s flick and hit the stumps to give him his second wicket in two deliveries. Rahul Chahar was then given LBW to a ball that struck the pad right in front of the wickets. It was the 20th instance of a bowler taking a hat-trick in IPL over the years. Amit Mishra leads the charts with three hat-tricks to his name.