Not Rohit Sharma or Virat Kohli! Mayank Yadav reveals this India star helped him in early stage of his career 

Young Delhi-born right-arm pacer Mayank Yadav made all the headlines last night during Lucknow Super Giants‘ 2nd match of IPL 2024 with his lethal pace and even better lines and lengths. He claimed some important wickets of Punjab Kings batters, who at first were inching closer towards the win before Mayank was introduced in the attack.

While his pace was ferocious from the beginning, it was his lines and lengths that needed a lot of hard work, and if he has improved in that regard then it’s just because of LSG skipper KL Rahul.

Mayank Yadav made this revelation before the start of IPL 2024 while speaking to Manjot Kalra on his YouTube podcast named “2nd Innings”. While KL Rahul could not score big against Punjab, he was still feeling proud. He must have felt proud of the fact that he was able to groom such a talented fast bowler who can possibly become one of the greatest assets for the Indian team in the near future.

On his debut IPL match in front of home support at the Ekana stadium, Mayank Yadav, with his figures of 3/27 at an economy of less than 7, walked away as the man of the match. That’s a very rare feat for a bowler who hasn’t even played much domestic cricket. The 21-year-old has played just 28 white-ball domestic games – 17 List A and 11 Syed Mushtaq Ali games while in the Ranji Trophy, the youngster has represented Delhi only once.

Mayank Yadav says KL Rahul used to encourage him to keep asking questions

In that interview with Manjot Kalra 4 months ago, Mayank Yadav gave a lot of credit to KL Rahul for the way he has developed his game so far. Yadav narrated that Rahul used to ask him to focus more and work extremely hard on his lines and lengths because he already had the required amount of pace.

Yadav also stated that whenever he used to go to KL Rahul with a query, he would never return empty-handed. In fact, the senior India batter used to tell the youngster to ask him more and more questions if he wanted.

“KL Rahul helped me a lot in the early stage of my career, when I used to ask him 1 question, he answered quickly & told me to ask 10 more, advised me to focus more on line & length as I already have the speed which makes me more better,” Mayank Yadav said via Manjot Kalra’s 2nd innings.

Can Mayank Yadav break into the Indian squad for the ICC T20 World Cup 2024?

As soon as Mayank Yadav bowled that match-winning spell against Punjab Kings, conversations and debates sparked around his chances of making it to India’s squad for the ICC T20 World Cup in June. While many believe that he could be a good option to have in the backups, others are of the view that he needs to put up such performances consistently in order to be considered.

His head coach from Delhi’s Ranji Trophy team Devang Gandhi, too, feels that if he remains consistent on his grind then no one can stop him and that he is already on the radar of chief selectors.