In the 2022 Indian Premier League, a certain Umran Malik created ripples with his incredible bowling speeds; the raw pacer from Sunrisers Hyderabad clocked speeds of 150+kph almost at will; he took 18 wickets throughout the campaign and soon earned his maiden Indian call-up. Umran made sporadic appearances for the national team but continues to have issues with his line and lengths. Merely two years later, however, it seems India have found another speed sensation in the 2024 IPL season – this time, in the Lucknow Super Giants camp – and his name is Mayank Yadav.
On Saturday, Mayank made his debut with the Super Giants and soon after his first spell, became the top trending name on X, formerly Twitter. In his opening spell, Mayank clocked speeds over 150kph, with his highest being the record for the season so far – a 155.8kph scorcher to Shikhar Dhawan. The Punjab Kings batter, too, looked slightly taken aback by the fierce pace as he failed to connect the bat with the delivery.
Mayank’s four overs proved crucial to Lucknow Super Giants’ brilliant 21-run win over the PBKS – their first in the 2024 season. He picked three crucial wickets; the first was a partnership-breaking opening wicket of Jonny Bairstow (42 off 29 balls) right when it seemed the PBKS might take the game away from LSG. In his next over, he removed the hard-hitting Impact Player Prabhsimran Singh (19 off 7 balls) to bring the Super Giants back in the match.
The stand-in captain didn’t waste time and handed Mayank his final over in the 16th over of the game. Result? A wicket no.3, this time of the side’s star wicketkeeper-batter Jitesh Sharma.
A commonality in all three wickets was Mayank banging it short on the pitch, extracting the bounce from his scorching pace. All three batters — Bairstow, Prabhsimran, and Jitesh — failed to connect their attempted shots at deep midwicket, with Bairstow and Prabhismran barely managing to clear the inner circle.
Who is Mayank Yadav
Mayank rose to prominence with strong white-ball performances last year in domestic cricket. In the CK Nayudu Trophy (U23), the 21-year-old picked 15 wickets in just six matches, with his performance against Chhattisgarh being his best as he took five wickets, and also scored 66 runs in the game.
Representing Delhi in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, Mayank maintained a brilliant economy rate of 6.5 in four matches, picking five wickets. Additionally, he also took six wickets in five Vijay Hazare Trophy matches.
In the 2023 Deodhar Trophy, Mayank, playing for the North Zone, delivered a commendable performance, bagging 12 wickets in five matches with an impressive average of 17.58 and an economy rate of less than six.
He faced an injury right before the beginning of the 2023 season in the IPL, which forced him out of the entire edition. Mayank has played only one first-class match in his career so far, which came during the 2022 season.
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