Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH)’s pacer Praful Hinge became a pace sensation in just six balls of IPL 2026 on Monday (April 13). The right-arm fast-medium pacer took three wickets in his first over on IPL debut, becoming the first to do so in the 19-year-long history of the storied competition.
He got rid of Rajasthan Royals (RR) opener Vaibhav Sooryavanshi on the second ball, Dhruv Jurel on his fourth, and RR debutant Lhuan-dre Pretorius on his sixth. His figures read 1-0-3-1 after one over!
How did he do it? By trusting his natural skills and pace.
Sooryavanshi has been the talk of the country for a while now. He took Hinge a bit lightly — the pacer bowled a short ball on the body, and the 15-year-old left-hander took it on with a pull shot, and could
only get it off the top half of his bat. The ball went high for an easy catch for wicketkeeper Salil Arora.
Two balls later, Jurel made the same mistake. He was beaten for pace trying to drive at a fuller ball with a big gap between his bat and pad. He was beaten for pace, too, getting an edge to his stumps.
Two more balls later, Pretorius gifted him a third wicket, flicking a straight ball to deep square leg.
Hinge didn’t stop there. In his second over, he bowled it full and wide to RR captain Riyan Parag, who went for an expansive cover-drive only to edge it to Abhishek Sharma at slips behind the wicket.
Who is Praful Hinge?
Hinge is a 24-year-old pacer from Vidarbha. He has claimed 27 wickets in 10 first-class matches and was a part of Vidarbha’s recent Ranji Trophy and Vijay Hazare Trophy-winning squads. Hinge has been trained at the MRF Pace Foundation in Chennai since 2022.
He was signed for just Rs. 30 lakh in the IPL 2026 auction and idolises Pat Cummins.
