Prince Yadav skips police exam for IPL shot

A few years ago, Prince Yadav’s father pushed him toward the kind of job many Indian families trust: a Delhi Police constable post with a salary, a ladder, and very little drama. Prince showed up for the physical test and was fit enough to clear it. But his father, Ram Niwas Yadav, now says the written exam never really had him. His mind was on cricket, specifically on bowling yorkers in local tennis-ball matches around Najafgarh. On April 7, 2026, a Press Trust of India profile carried the story in blunt terms: the exam was the safe road, and Prince walked away from it (sports.ndtv.com). That choice looks cleaner in hindsight than it would have at the time. Ram Niwas, an assistant sub-inspector in the Railway Protection Force, told PTI that until Prince was 18, he had not even bowled with a leather ball. He was still a tennis-ball specialist, the kind of player who can become a neighborhood name without becoming a professional one. The bridge out of that world came when coach Amit Vashistha spotted him in a local tournament and pulled him into structured training in Najafgarh; former India Under-19 quick Pradeep Sangwan later helped with fitness work. Ram Niwas recalled Prince running through paddy fields with a sandbag strapped on, building his body for a sport that had not yet promised him anything (sports.ndtv.com). The next step was not the IPL. It was the Delhi Premier League, which is exactly why the story is useful if you care about how Indian cricket labor markets now work. In 2024, Prince played for Purani Delhi 6, the team led by Rishabh Pant, and took 13 wickets in 10 matches. That season turned him from a local fast bowler into a player scouts could price. ESPNcricinfo says the same run earned him a white-ball debut for Delhi, and Sportstar reports that he followed it by becoming Delhi’s highest wicket-taker in both the 2024-25 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy campaign and the Vijay Hazare Trophy stretch that followed (espncricinfo.com, sportstar.thehindu.com). The timing was almost cinematic. ESPNcricinfo notes that Prince made his T20 debut for Delhi against Uttar Pradesh on November 23, 2024, took two wickets, and then went into the IPL mega auction the very next day. Lucknow Super Giants bought him for his base price of INR 30 lakh. Cricbuzz’s auction tracker lists him among LSG’s 30-lakh domestic buys, the sort of signing franchises make to fill the middle of a squad with players who can outperform their price if they adapt quickly (espncricinfo.com, cricbuzz.com). That is where the story stops being only sentimental and starts looking like sports business. A police job offers predictable income and status. A 30-lakh IPL deal offers a much bigger upside, but only if a player can convert a short contract into more contracts. Prince had already been inside LSG’s system as a net bowler in 2023, which matters: franchises often use those roles as low-risk scouting channels before spending even modest auction money. The IPL’s official player page says LSG bought him in the 2025 mega auction after that net-bowler stint and retained him at the same price ahead of the 2026 season to preserve domestic pace depth (iplt20.com). Then came the detail that makes a squad player visible. In March 2025, Prince made his IPL debut for Lucknow. Soon after, he clean-bowled Travis Head, one of the league’s most feared hitters, for his first IPL wicket. By April 2026, ESPNcricinfo had him at eight IPL matches and seven wickets, while NDTV’s profile had his father watching neighbors stream in after another dismissal, this time of Ishan Kishan, to tell him the boy had brought fame to their part of Najafgarh (espncricinfo.com, sports.ndtv.com, sports.ndtv.com).