Biography & Career Overview
Prince Yadav's career is a study in how late a talent can bloom and still arrive early. Born on 12 December 2001 in Delhi, he was a first-class debutant at twenty-two, an age at which most Indian international prospects have already passed through the auction room with a highlight reel behind them, and within eighteen months of that debut he had played for India in both limited-overs formats. In between, he became one of the discoveries of the 2024–25 domestic season, a ₹30 lakh pick at the IPL mega auction on the strength of a single T20 tournament, Delhi's highest wicket-taker in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, a regular for the Lucknow Super Giants, and, by the middle of 2026, an ODI and T20I international. His T20I debut produced one of the most quotable facts a fast bowler can carry: on the first ball he ever faced in the format, he hit a six, joining a list of Indians containing exactly two other names, Suryakumar Yadav and Ramandeep Singh. He is one of two Yadav quicks currently in the Lucknow Super Giants camp alongside Mayank Yadav, and his arc from the Delhi Premier League to the national team is the cleanest recent example of Indian selectors reading domestic data rather than reputation.
Early Life and the Delhi Premier League
Prince's cricketing story before 2023 is the ordinary one of Delhi's vast age-group system, school tournaments, district trials, the long queue of quick bowlers from the capital who wait years for a single season to go right. What is documented changes in the 2024 season of the Delhi Premier League T20, the city's franchise tournament that functions as the last shop-window before the national selectors' eyes reach the official circuits. Prince played for Purani Delhi 6, the side led by Rishabh Pant, and finished the season with thirteen wickets in ten matches. The performance was not merely a tally; it was the kind of white-ball apprenticeship (new-ball spells, death-over concessions, home conditions) that a state team notices before an IPL camp does. Following that season he earned his white-ball call-up for Delhi, having already represented the state in the Ranji Trophy, and the sequence of doors that opened across the following eight months is the substance of his record.
Domestic Breakthrough: Three Debuts, One Statement Season
Prince made his first-class debut for Delhi against Jammu & Kashmir in the 2023–24 Ranji Trophy on 12 January 2024, the longest-format entry that preceded his white-ball rise. His T20 debut followed for Delhi against Uttar Pradesh on 23 November 2024 in the 2024–25 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, a date that sits in memory because it was the day before the 2025 IPL mega auction. In that match he picked up two crucial wickets to seal a Delhi win, and on the following day the Lucknow Super Giants selected him for ₹30 lakh. The auction timing made the story neat, but the season that followed made it durable: he finished the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy with eleven wickets at an economy rate of 7.54, the highest wicket-taker on the Delhi side, which itself reached the semi-final. A bowler who is bought the day after debuting and then leads his state's tournament wicket charts is a bowler whose auction price was the bargain, not the achievement. He completed the domestic triangle with his List A debut for Delhi against Bengal in the 2024–25 Vijay Hazare Trophy on 21 December 2024, ending that season with eleven wickets in six matches at an average of 22.00.
IPL Career: From Retention to the Purple Cap Conversation
Prince made his Indian Premier League debut for the Lucknow Super Giants against the Delhi Capitals on 24 March 2025, the fourth match of the tournament, and finished his first IPL season as the franchise's leading wicket-taker with sixteen wickets in fourteen matches, per the Super Giants' own player profile. That return earned him retention in the Lucknow squad for IPL 2026, and in the 2026 season his early form, a run of wickets in the opening weeks that had him holding, by the reporting of mid-May, the league's Purple Cap as its leading wicket-taker, moved him from squad player to the shortlist of Indian cricket's most-watched new quicks. The Purple Cap position in any IPL season is a moving object; what is fixed is that by the end of his second league season his name had appeared at the top of the tournament's wicket standings, in the same dressing room as Mayank Yadav, the fastest bowler in the league's recent memory.
International Career: ODIs, T20Is, and a Six on the First Ball
The national call came in May 2026: his maiden India selection, for the ODI series against Afghanistan. He made his ODI debut in the second match of the series on 17 June 2026 and took two wickets. Within the same month he was included for the two-match T20I away series against Ireland, and on 28 June 2026, in the second match, he made his T20I debut, and the debut delivered the statistic that travels. On the first ball he faced in international T20 cricket, as a number-eight type batter whose job description is the lower middle order, Prince hit a six. In the entire history of Indian T20 Internationals, only Suryakumar Yadav and Ramandeep Singh had previously done that. For a reader of this archive, the connection is literal: Suryakumar Yadav is the benchmark batsman of the Yadav name, and Prince Yadav now shares one of his strangest records. The two caps in one month, earned at twenty-four off three seasons of domestic cricket, completed one of the faster domestic-to-international conversions an Indian quick bowler has made.
Playing Style: New-Ball Seam at the Front of the Attack
Prince is a right-arm fast bowler whose value to Delhi and Lucknow has been built on the new ball: an upright seam position, hits the good length hard enough to keep batters on the back foot, and moves the off-cutter and slower ball through the same arm speed. The wicket tallies describe the method better than adjectives, eleven wickets in a winning Syed Mushtaq Ali campaign for Delhi, sixteen in fourteen IPL matches on debut, the economy figures in the sevens rather than the tens that mark a bowler trusted with the powerplay and the death in equal measure. His batting, the lower-order strike that produced the debut six, is a genuine extra: a bowler who can clear the ropes against quality international bowling changes the arithmetic of a number-eight slot. The limitations that belong to the same profile are those of any young quick, workload management, and the consistency question that follows a bowler whose first two seasons at the top level were separated by a single summer.
Personal Life
The public record on Prince's personal life is thin by design and by fact: a Delhi upbringing, a cricketing adulthood that began in the city's local tournaments, and a name that entered newspaper reporting only in 2024. Nothing beyond that (family details, relationships, off-field business) is documented by the outlets on which this profile relies, and none is invented here. What is verifiable is the shape of the rise: a Delhi Premier League season under Rishabh Pant's leadership, an auction bought the day after a T20 debut, and two international caps inside a month at twenty-four. His social presence tracks his cricket (Super Giants and India postings) which is the same discipline the profile keeps.
His Place in the Yadav Story
Prince Yadav adds a second Delhi fast bowler to the Yadav cricket shelf beside Mayank Yadav, and links his name to Suryakumar Yadav through the T20I first-ball six record the two now share with Ramandeep Singh. Within the archive's cricket section he represents the pipeline working as intended: district cricket to state cricket to auction to international in under two years, on numbers rather than reputation. The cricketers hub collects the Yadav profiles in full, and the long-read origins of the Yadav community supplies the social backdrop. Where an outside source disagrees with our record, the corrections policy explains how we resolve it.
How This Profile Was Verified
Debut dates, venues, opponents and wicket figures were taken from Prince Yadav's published match records as maintained on Wikipedia and ESPNcricinfo; the IPL retention note and the sixteen-wicket 2025 tally come from the Lucknow Super Giants' official player profile; the 2026 Purple Cap reference is worded as the mid-season reporting had it (Cricinfo's IPL 2026 coverage), with no claim about how the season's final standings resolved. The T20I first-ball six fact and its two predecessor names are drawn from the same sourced record set. No personal detail beyond published record is included. Where an outside source disagrees with our record, our corrections policy explains how we resolve it.
