Sometimes, the most memorable occasions need an inauspicious start.
Jacob Bethell had faced three legal deliveries interspersed with three wides from Mohammad Shami when he punched the ball behind point to get his innings moving. The ball sped to Prince Yadav’s left, and the fast bowler covered the ground only to let it slip through his fingers and into the boundary cushion.
It was a rudimentary fielding error, and Shami shook his head as he marched back to the top of his mark for the next ball, which Bethell tried to hoick to the leg side. His effort produced a top-edge that flew high into the air, sending the ball back in the direction it had just come from.
As it swirled high into the sky again, Prince moved similarly to his left, tracking the ball with eagle-eyed focus, and this time clung onto the catch to dismiss Bethell. That moment of redemption proved the starting point of an evening in which the 24-year-old fast bowler made a telling impact as Lucknow Super Giants secured its first win at the Ekana Stadium in IPL 2026 against Royal Challengers Bengaluru.
“That misfield went for four, I couldn’t take it back, and I had to leave it there,” Prince said after the game. “If I had kept it in my mind, I would have gone out of the game. So I had to leave it behind and think about how I can still contribute for the team, and it was through that catch.”
Catch in hand, he then took the new ball from the other end, bowling to none other than Virat Kohli. Two balls later, he landed his next decisive blow.
The ball pitched just outside off and nipped sharply back in. Kohli looked to defend but was beaten on the inside edge, and as the ball snaked through bat and pad, it cannoned into the off stump and uprooted it entirely, silencing a crowd that sometimes seemed as though watching Kohli bat was its only agenda for the day.
Virat Kohli was clean bowled by a peach of a delivery from Prince Yadav that nipped back in a long way and hit the top of off stump. | Photo Credit: SHASHI SHEKHAR KASHYAP
Virat Kohli was clean bowled by a peach of a delivery from Prince Yadav that nipped back in a long way and hit the top of off stump. | Photo Credit: SHASHI SHEKHAR KASHYAP
After the match, the Delhi quick revealed that the wicket stemmed from advice Kohli himself had offered after the last meeting between the two sides. “After the last match, I was talking to him, and he told me that if the ball is doing something from a length, don’t leave it. So I did that, and got the result,” he told broadcasters.
It was a picture-perfect moment, perhaps the kind necessary to draw attention to a bowler who has quietly been one of LSG’s most effective performers in recent times. Since the start of last season, no bowler has taken more wickets for the franchise, and he also has the joint-most wickets at the Ekana Stadium.
Prince himself was more measured after the match, preferring to focus on the team. “I’m really happy to have taken the wicket, but the thing I’m most happy about is that we won the match. If I had taken the wicket but we had lost, I wouldn’t be so happy, so the best thing is that the team won,” he said.
Nor was he content to rest there. Having been rocked twice early, RCB mounted a comeback through Devdutt Padikkal and Rajat Patidar, who put on 95 at pace to keep the contest alive.
When Prince returned in the 11th over, the preceding two overs had gone for 17 and 18 respectively, but that proved no problem for him, as he immediately broke the partnership by inducing Padikkal to chip a return catch with a length ball that gripped off the surface.
Jitesh Sharma, the star of the last match between these sides at the Ekana Stadium, was out three balls later, skying a short ball that rushed him for pace. In the following over, Patidar drilled Shahbaz Ahmed to long-off, and suddenly RCB had slipped from 104/2 to 112/5.
Aside from being the phase that broke the game open, the spell also highlighted Prince’s ability to utilise his skillset to take wickets in different ways.
“Whether it’s through different methods, or just one method, bowlers are happy when they take wickets,” Prince said after the match. “But the important thing was that we needed to take wickets to win the match, and that’s what happened.”
Prince’s display was impressive enough to earn plaudits from opposing skipper Rajat Patidar, who described his spell as “game-changing” and credited him for backing his skills.
“I’ve played quite a few domestic matches against Prince, when he played for Delhi, and I’ve seen him from the start. He has plenty of variations, he has pace, his line and length is good, and he can swing the ball, he’s a proper fast bowler,” Patidar said.
“I think what is special about him is how confident he is in his skills. I’ve seen him for some time, and he never seems to go for too many runs.”
Perhaps the biggest sign of Prince’s growing status in the IPL was the timing of his final over. They say you give your best bowler the penultimate over in a tight match, and Rishabh Pant threw the ball to Prince with 33 needed from the final two overs.
The over went for a creditable 13, and as Digvesh Rathi defended 20 in the final over, Thursday’s match became the night a Prince ruled the Ekana Stadium.
Published on May 08, 2026