Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) speedster Mayank Yadav demolished the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) batting line-up on Tuesday (April 2) in front of a jam-packed Chinnaswamy Stadium.
Mayank's searing pace saw the back of Rajat Patidar, Glenn Maxwell and Cameron Green. He returned with the incredible bowling figures of 3/14 in four overs and earned his second Player-of-the-Match award in a row.
During the game, the 21-year-old consistently bowled at the speed exceeding 150 kmph. In his second over, he also clocked 156.7 kmph to register the fastest ball of the season.
Speaking on ESPN's Around the Wicket, RCB batter Maxwell heaped praise on Mayank Yadav, saying that he observed the right-arm quick closely while watching LSG's match against Punjab Kings but his homework wasn’t quite good enough to deal with the real thing.
On his IPL debut last Saturday (March 30), Mayank ripped through the Punjab Kings (PBKS) batting line-up and finished with the figures of 3/27 in four overs.
"I thought it was really impressive," Maxwell said. "He hurried on a few of the Punjab batters and I certainly did a little bit of homework before coming up against him. But it's nothing doing homework against someone until you actually see it coming out of the hand and have to try and pick up the length.
"He bowled me the first one which was just a high bouncer and the wicket that we've been producing at [Bengaluru] has been a little bit two-paced and it sort of came through a bit slower than I thought it was going to. And I was like, ah, that wasn't too bad.
"And then the next one was hard length and skidded on probably faster than I thought it was going to be and as you saw I went to pull thinking that I picked up the length really well and before you know it, it's on you, hitting the shoulder the bat and ballooning up in the air.
"He has some real extra speed that you don't really see a lot of around world cricket at the moment. You see guys bowl pretty consistently around the 140s [kph] or high 140s. But to have mid-150s consistently in your arsenal is pretty formidable."
Glenn Maxwell compared Mayank Yadav’s speeds with that of former Australian quick Shaun Tait in his prime.
"It's such a beautiful smooth action," Maxwell said. "He [Mayank] sort of glided through the crease really nicely. I think pace-wise, the only one that I can sort of really resemble it to is a little bit like Shaun Tait when he was in his heyday.
"I think when he was at the peak of his powers it was extremely hard to pick up the extra zip it feels like it has off the wicket. I think that's as close as it probably comes to it."
Although the IPL 2024 is still in its initial stage, RCB’s performances haven’t been inspiring so far. In four matches, the Bengaluru-based franchise has registered only one victory.
On a personal front, Maxwell hasn’t lived up to the expectations as well, registering scores of 0, 3, 28 and 0.
"It obviously hasn't been a great start for us or myself individually," Maxwell said. "It's been a little bit of a struggle. I think we've been probably caught a little bit behind with our conditions that we've probably produced in the first few home games as well.
"I think last year we had a beautiful even wicket that we were able to I suppose get ourselves into the game, get our top batters going and I've felt that those two-paced wickets it's just been a bit of a struggle for our overseas players to get into the game and get that sort of consistency of performance. And when you start slow in T20 cricket it can be a hard thing to come back and find rhythm to get back into it. So hopefully this little away trip does us some good."
