Lucknow Super Giants bowling coach Bharat Arun said on May 18, 2026, that Mayank Yadav is fit again and bowling with the kind of pace that made him one of the IPL’s most talked-about young quicks. Arun said the Indian fast bowler, who has been sidelined by injuries, is now “raring to go” and must be handled carefully.
“If you ask any coach of any team, they would tell you that they would do anything to have a genuine quick in their team,” Arun said in Jaipur. He called Mayank a rare talent and said injuries had kept him out for the last two years, leaving his appearances inconsistent. Even so, Arun said the pace is back: “Now he is fit and raring to go. He is bowling with really good pace. He is somebody we have to take care of.”
That matters because Mayank’s first IPL outing for Lucknow came two years ago against the Punjab Kings, and it arrived like a warning shot to the league. He took three for 27 on debut, was named Player-of-the-Match and hit 155.8 kmph that season, the fastest ball in the IPL at the time. For a franchise looking for genuine pace, that kind of return is rare and hard to replace.
Since that burst, injuries have disrupted the arc of a bowler many had already started to file under special. Arun’s comments suggest Lucknow are still planning around the same possibility that first appeared in flashes on debut: a fast bowler who can change a match on his own, if his body holds up.
The question now is not whether Mayank Yadav has the raw speed. It is whether Lucknow can keep him on the field long enough for that speed to matter over a full IPL season.
