Ferociously fast and thrillingly direct: how Mayank went bang, bang ...
There are many ways of knowing that a bowler is seriously quick. There's the cold, hard evidence of the speed gun. There's the effect all that pace has on the batter, which can manifest itself as feet moving too little or too much, hands going out of control, and a general sense of being ill at ease.
"Number one, he hardly spends any time on his back foot," Aaron said on Timeout, ESPNcricinfo's post-game show. "Really quick through [the crease], though he's a side-on bowler. Generally, side-on bowlers spend a lot of time on the back foot. He's just - ball of the foot, and out of there.
"He uses his levers really well, similar to Jofra [Archer]. He's not a similar bowler to Jofra Archer, but just the way his load comes down, uses his levers really well. Beautiful braced front leg. His [front] foot doesn't even splay, even this much (gestures with thumb and forefinger less than an inch apart) - it's straight on to the batsman. Unbelievable follow-through. What else do you want?"
What else? Well, just more of the same, please. A lot more, all the time.
Except, every cricket fan knows that express pace is a rare commodity in more than one way. Like Aaron, like Akhtar, like Archer, and the vast majority of tearaway quicks through history, Mayank too has experienced long spells out of the game with injury, and he's still only 21. Lucknow Super Giants signed him at the 2022 IPL auction, but this was his first game for them. It was only his 11th T20 game overall, and he's only played one first-class match and 17 List A games in a senior career that began in December 2021.
Such can be the life of a genuine fast bowler. A life of long and seemingly interminable waits.
Sunday, though, was one of those belated appearances that was fully worth the wait. A debut of extreme, game-changing pace. Before his introduction, Punjab Kings were bossing a chase of 200. By the time his four overs were done, Kings were done too.
Mayank Yadav picked up three wickets for LSG on his debut•BCCI
Simple, and thrillingly direct. He took three wickets, and all three - of Jonny Bairstow, Prabhsimran Singh and Jitesh Sharma - were roughly the same. On each occasion, the batter looked to make room and use Mayank's pace to access the shorter boundary on the off side. Each time, Mayank used his pace, inward angle and awkward bounce expertly to force them to go leg-side instead, while both hurrying them and cramping them for room.
Bang, bang, bang. These weren't the classic cricketing dismissals of bowled, lbw and catches off the outside edge, but they were proper T20 wickets, a bowler forcing errors through skill, accuracy and scoreboard pressure. And at the speeds, Mayank was bowling at - he clocked the fastest ball of IPL 2024, at 155.8kph, during the course of his spell - the accuracy was especially noteworthy.
"Unbelievable follow-through. What else do you want?"
Varun Aaron on Mayank Yadav
"His lines were really, really good," Aaron said. "Sometimes when you're maxing out and you're trying to bowl as fast as possible, you can be a little extra on the off side or stray down the leg side. Not one ball [was off line]. I think it's really good signs - not just for him, for Indian cricket, because he's bowling some serious gas."
"Same pace, same excitement initially, upfront," Moody said. "My initial take on Mayank versus Umran is that there's a better action and repeatable action with what we've seen tonight, in Mayank. He's still 21, so it's really important that he's managed carefully, physically, because that's a real red zone for fast bowlers, between the age of 18 to 25. I'm sure that the experts will have their arms around him, protecting him, and making sure that they get him strong in the right areas.
"Umran, a lot more going on at the crease with regards to his action, so therefore the control isn't there but the pace is there. So what Umran needs to work on is that control at the crease, making his action cleaner, and what we've seen tonight is another step ahead. And that's just come naturally. He's been gifted with that, and he's just started to bowl. It's very hard to get someone that hasn't got a braced front leg to suddenly learn how to brace their front leg as a fast bowler. You've either got it or you haven't got it. It's very hard to develop it."
You either have it or you don't. Mayank has it, and we're all strapped in for the ride, dreaming and hoping.
Karthik Krishnaswamy is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo