LSG have a quality domestic pace attack.
Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) have followed a set template since their admission: having a solid set of Indian pacers. Right from their maiden season, they have unearthed several exciting speedsters, such as Mohsin Khan, Mayank Yadav, and even Yash Thakur. Last year, LSG unleashed another quality fast bowler, Prince Yadav, who will again be part of their IPL 2026 squad.
Read Prince Yadav’s full profile
LSG were without Mohsin and Mayank for most of the season, which opened opportunities for Prince in IPL 2025. He played six games, picking just three wickets at 75 runs apiece and an economy rate of 9.85. However, these numbers don’t show his true quality, as his attributes were indeed encouraging and worth giving him more chances.
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Prince Yadav has solid white-ball attributes, with his variations and pace decent enough to make him effective. His pace can be deceptive; his balls come quicker and sharper than his run-up shows. Then, he can also bowl hard lengths that climb on the batters.
Take his spell against Delhi Capitals in Lucknow, for instance. Prince hit shorter lengths consistently and cramped batters like Abishek Porel and KL Rahul for room by keeping them inside the crease. His pace kicks the ball off the surface, making it harder to hit, so his value remains immense on flat surfaces.
However, the most notable aspect has been his overreliance on yorkers, which was one of the biggest reasons behind his expensive spells. In IPL 2025, Prince attempted around 43.75% of yorkers, but he found success only 19.04% of the time. 41.26% of those deliveries ended as half volleys, and 38.09% were full tosses.
So, his control remains low, and he tries way too many yorkers. This strategy has been vulnerable for every pacer, as pressure and dew factor make nailing lengths hard. Unfortunately, the speedster attempted only 29.16% back-of-a-length or short balls last season.
Prince Yadav bowls with a sharp pace, and his relatively high ability to get the ball to reverse confirms it. Obviously, going for those fuller deliveries with the old ball also plays a role. Last season, at least 17.36% of his deliveries generated reverse swing.
So, that’s another big tick in his bowling. His yorker-heavy strategy can work well since he can generate movement with the old ball. Hence, the idea should be to mix those fuller ones with shorter balls.
Another notable thing is his slower ones, which are still work in progress but fetched him decent success last time. He bowled around 11.80% off-pace deliveries, which went for 9.20 runs per over. Still, he showed his variation and will need to develop it further to remain unpredictable.
LSG have two exciting pacers, Mayank Yadav and Mohsin Khan, who will likely start in IPL 2026 playing XI. However, both are injury-prone and are coming off a lengthy layoff, which might affect their performances. Even Mohammed Shami can be vulnerable and might need some workload management.
Hence, Prince Yadav can come as a decent backup and take one of the slots. He was in tremendous form in the Vijay Hazare Trophy 2025/26, grabbing 18 wickets at an average of 19.27 in eight innings, with a best of 3/28. Most of those wickets were flat and hardly gave anything to bowlers, but the speedster ended up as Delhi’s leading wicket-taker in the competition.
Even in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2025/26, Prince bowled well to get eight scalps at 27.87 runs apiece and an economy rate of 8.46 in seven outings. Hence, his recent form has definitely been good, and LSG would want to utilise it at some stage. He has evolved a lot since an impressive last season, and his skills are too good not to use in IPL 2026.
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