Harshal Patel's India debut coincided with AB de Villiers' retirement from professional cricket.
Featuring in his maiden T20I match, Harshal returned with the impressive figures of 2/25 to lay the foundation of India’s series-clinching seven-wicket victory over New Zealand in Ranchi on November 19. He earned the Player-of-the-Match award for his performance on international debut.
Speaking after the game, Harshal recalled the valuable advice he received from De Villiers while playing together in the Indian Premier League (IPL) for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB).
"AB has had a massive impact on my career. I have always been a silent observer of him," Harshal said at the post-match press conference.
"Recently when we were starting our campaign in the UAE I asked him, 'How do I reduce my big overs? Like I conceded 12-15 even 20 runs in the IPL so how should I reduce those?'"
"He told me, 'When a batsman hits your good delivery, you shouldn't change that. You should constantly force the batsman to hit your good deliveries only. If you get hit once on a good delivery then the batsman expects that you would change it and try another option.'
"That is something that stayed with me throughout the second leg of IPL and will stay with me throughout my career," he added.
AB de Villiers’ advice seemed to have helped Harshal immensely as the latter finished the 2021 edition of IPL as leading wicket-taker with 32 scalps from 15 games.
The 30-year-old was included in the Indian playing XI on Friday after fellow pacer Mohammad Siraj sustained split webbing during the T20I series opener.
"I was a very impetuous, very impatient person growing up. I learned through experiences, reading books and listening to successful people."
Harshal Patel also stressed on the importance of being patient.
"The second lesson and probably the most underrated thing is people don't talk enough about patience. I feel progress doesn't happen overnight.
"It's a slow process. It's a gradual process. And if you want to make a change, get better at something, you need to allow yourself enough time to sort of figure that out, how you're going to do that and it's going to take time.
"Being able to decipher wheat from chaff is a skill in itself. It's not something I was born with. It was the ability to differentiate between my skill set and things that I could not do," he concluded.
(With PTI inputs)