Harshal Patel hasn't been enough effective in IPL lately.
Since joining Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) last year, Harshal Patel has been mighty ineffective for most games. While there have been a couple of good spells, his overall impact has been nowhere close to previous seasons with RCB and PBKS. Since 2025, Harshal has 16 wickets at an average of 29.31 and an economy rate of 10.08 in 14 innings.
The other pacers in the same games have averaged 28.72, conceding 9.91 runs per over. He has had an economy of more than 10 in 64.28% of innings in this period. He has finished his spell only six times out of 14 outings.
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Harshal Patel has been expensive even during his best seasons, but what stood out during his peak phase was his ability to remain among wickets. For instance, he was the leading wicket-taker in 2024 but still went for 9.73 runs per over. His breakthroughs at regular intervals helped him remain effective and cover for those runs conceded.
But since last season, he has neither taken wickets nor been too economical. A major reason for his downfall has been his slower ones, which have not fetched him enough wickets. Between 2023 and 2024, Harshal picked 23 wickets at an average of 20 and an economy rate of 9.57 on all types of slower balls.
However, since last season, his average and economy rate have surged to 25.44 and 9.81, respectively. Harshal Patel has always relied on these slower ones to fetch wickets, but once that doesn’t happen, he has nowhere to hide. Since last year, his pace-on deliveries have also been ineffective by a big margin.
A major reason his slower balls haven’t been effective is a drastic change in lengths. He has shifted to bowling a lot shorter when attempting slower deliveries since last year. Between 2023 and 2024, Harshal bowled only 29.64% of off-pace balls on back-of-a-length or shorter, and bowled around 35.50% deliveries on fuller lengths.
However, since last season, he has delivered around 49.01% of slower ones on shorter lengths, with fuller ones reducing to just 16.33%. So, it has meant that Harshal Patel doesn’t get as much dip as he did earlier. Getting dip was his biggest weapon and the reason his slower ones reaped so many wickets, but once he started getting less vertical drop, his slower ones were rendered ineffective.
That’s also why his fuller deliveries have been more expensive now. Between 2023 and 2024, he conceded only 8.92 runs per over on fuller off-pace balls. The same lengths have gone for 11.53 runs per over since 2025.
Now, Harshal has been too hesitant to let the ball come into the batter’s slot, which obviously has to do with the flat pitches on offer. He has tried to extract the grip from the surface by bowling shorter balls, but these surfaces hardly offer any grip at any venue. They just come on the bat easily and give batters more time to whack them from shorter lengths.
Even in the opening game against RCB, Harshal Patel bowled 4 of his nine slower balls on the shorter lengths. His focus has been on saving runs rather than taking wickets, which is clearly not working at the moment. He might need to mix his lengths more, even if he wants to remain away from the batter’s arc.
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