CHENNAI: Last Saturday, Lucknow Super Giants shared a short reel. It made the Indian cricketing fraternity sit up and smile. A slow motion video of Mayank Yadav nailing a toe-crushing yorker in full speed.
The short clip, which has more than 4M views, and the comments section is enough to understand the anticipation around Mayank's return to a full-fledged IPL season once again after missing most of 2025 due to a back injury. He came back during the recent T20 World Cup warm-up games, turning up for India A, but now the world will get to see Mayank steaming in full tilt. Watching it from afar, Devendra Sharma, cricket coach at Sonnet Club in New Delhi, is a happy man. "It's God's grace," Sharma, who has seen Mayank from close quarters, tells this daily.
After all, the last two years have been a roller coaster for the young pace sensation who broke through during 2024 IPL for the Super Giants. Two years ago, Mayank caught the attention when he hit the 150KPH mark consistently on his IPL debut. All of 21 at the time, the immediate reaction around Mayank was how Indian cricket should manage and protect the youngster in terms of workload. However, after four matches, he had abdominal soreness. In the weeks that followed, he was ruled out of the season. Mayank came back, made his T20I debut against Bangladesh, but missed the first half of the 2025 IPL due to back injury. When he returned, he looked a shadow of himself with reduced pace. However, another back injury meant he had to take a long lay off.
Soon, he was on his way to New Zealand for a back surgery, something similar to that of Jasprit Bumrah. Then began the long road back to the cricket field. In the months that followed, Mayank spent most of the time at the BCCI CoE where he underwent rehab. When he eventually took the field for India A during the warm-ups, Mayank went wicketless in the first outing against USA (0/37) but the pace was back. In the second game against Namibia, he stepped up and delivered a clinical spell (2/17). "He came to Delhi before going to CoE where he worked hard. He had two sessions every day, morning and evening. Initially, he started with two-three overs before gradually increasing the workload. By the time the T20 World Cup warm-ups came along, he was bowling 20 overs in a day. He is bowling well now as you would have seen in the T20 World Cup warm-ups," Sharma recalled.
The road to this point was not easy. Through all this, Mayank kept to himself and worked towards his goal of getting better. He missed an entire season for Delhi, went through the frustrating phase but the 23-year-old did not give up. "It's frustrating for an athlete. If you're bowling well in the IPL and then you get injured, it's a big problem. You have to be mentally strong. You have to motivate yourself. Whenever I meet him, I motivate him. Whenever he comes to Delhi, he comes to the club, we sit down and talk about what he is going through. It is not easy. In today's world, it's difficult to make a comeback in T20. It's a fast game. If you go for runs, how will the public react? What will the selectors think?... Mentally, you have to be strong. You have to stop using social media. If you use social media, you will get depressed. But he has a natural speed. It's God's gift. He's a quick learner and knows injuries are part of the game. We have seen in the past with Zaheer Khan, Ajit Agarkar, Ashish Nehra, even Bumrah. I think he will do well this season," Sharma explained.
Sharma credits BCCI and CoE chief VVS Laxman for supporting Mayank through all this. "I'm very thankful to CoE for this. They helped him a lot. Laxman backed Mayank from behind. Rishabh Pant and Ayush Badoni are also in the same team," said Sharma, recalling what Mayank told him last: "He told me that he his fully fit. 'I'm preparing to play Test cricket, I want to play for India again,'"
The first step towards making a comeback to the blues and staying in the Indian team would be to help the Super Giants. The Indian cricketing fraternity wouldn't want anything different.