It's still early days in the 2024 Indian Premier League, but after 16 matches, Mayank Yadav seems to be emerging as the find of this season's IPL. The 21-year-old rookie pacer bowled the fastest ball of this year's IPL on his debut and barely two days later, broke it to set a new record. There is hardly a better sight in world cricket than a fast bowler running in and destroying the stumps but for Indian cricket fans, such visuals are even sweeter. They have waited years, even decades to see an Indian pacer terrorise Australia's batters, and to finally see Mayank do the same to the likes of Cameron Green and Glenn Maxwell is nothing less than a form of retribution in itself.

Mayank had already impressed with his raw pace during Lucknow Super Giants' outing against Punjab Kings where he took 3/27 and bowled a delivery clocked at 155.8 kph. But two days later, against the Royal Challengers Bengaluru, he was even ruthless. Mayank knocked over Rajat Patidar, Maxwell and Green to finish with splendid figures 3/14 which included him sending down a 156.7kmph snorter. While that ball didn't get a wicket, the ones that did were a sight to behold. Green was clueless, Maxwell bounced out.

Maxwell in particular was pretty blown away with Mayank's speed. While he had seen a bit of the youngster in the PBKS game, Maxwell admitted facing Mayank altogether was a different experience. Going by what he saw, Maxwell initially felt Mayank may not have been that quick, but his perception changed the very next ball.

"I thought it was really impressive. He hurried on a few of the Punjab batters and I certainly did a little bit of homework before coming up against him. But it's nothing doing homework against someone until you actually see it coming out of the hand and have to try and pick up the length. He bowled me the first one which was just a high bouncer and the wicket that we've been producing at [Bengaluru] has been a little bit two-paced and it sort of came through a bit slower than I thought it was going to. And I was like, ah, that wasn't too bad," Maxwell said while speaking to ESPN Around the Wicket.

"And then the next one was hard length and skidded on probably faster than I thought it was going to be and as you saw I went to pull thinking that I picked up the length really well and before you know it, it's on you, hitting the shoulder the bat and ballooning up in the air. He has some real extra speed that you don't really see a lot of around world cricket at the moment. You see guys bowl pretty consistently around the 140s [kph] or high 140s. But to have mid-150s consistently in your arsenal is pretty formidable."

A bit of Shaun Tait in there

Mayank is now fifth on the list of fastest balls bowled in the IPL. At the top of the list is Australia pacer Shaun Tait, whose 157.7 kmph rocket is yet to be topped 13 years later. This may seem a bit premature but Mayank's action reminded Maxwell of the former Australia quick. Smooth action, a timely jump and an even smoother release echoed some similarities, but having faced them both, Maxwell sure feels there is a certain amount of resemblance between Mayank and Tait to say the least.

"It's such a beautiful smooth action," Maxwell said. "He [Mayank] sort of glided through the crease really nicely. I think pace-wise, the only one that I can sort of really resemble it to is a little bit like Shaun Tait when he was in his heyday. I think when he was at the peak of his powers it was extremely hard to pick up the extra zip it feels like it has off the wicket. I think that's as close as it probably comes to it."

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