The tennis-ball nights on dusty grounds in Delhi’s outskirts would seem like a different life for Prince Yadav. But the seamer from Najafgarh loves to recollect, with longing, the days that made him, and thanks them for the one vital attribute that’s central to his bowling. “I thank tennis-ball cricket for my arm speed,” he tells LSG’s website.Tennis or tape-ball cricket quickens the arm-speed because the bowler has to rely entirely on air speed and yorkers to succeed. The taped or nylon-wrapped ball doesn’t bend in the air or move off the surface like a cricket ball. Yadav practised with a wet tennis ball, which was heavier, as it often got on dewy Delhi evenings. “It helped me deal with real match situations when playing with the tennis ball. The aim was to bowl yorkers as fast as I could, bend your back and just go full on,” he says in the video.The deadliest exponents of the yorker had tennis or tape-balled forebears. Waqar Younis (more side-on than the front-on Yadav) and Lasith Malinga (slingy, low-arm action more suitable to bowling yorkers naturally) are prime examples. Both of them had devilishly quick arms, honed by looking to bowl as fast as they could on the Rathgama beach and alleys of Burewala. So has Yadav, whose expertise in hurling yorkers at high pace and the next best thing, the low-flung full-toss, has made him India’s Mr Death Overs in only eleven games. In the 10 overs he has bowled at the death (16 to 20), he has conceded a fraction under ten runs an over and picked five wickets. Only one six has been struck in these overs, an exceptional feat on pitches that would have had bowlers contemplating quitting.01The mechanics of Prince Yadav's yorkerVariety: He can alter the line at will. Often, he bowls at the base of the off-stump or just outside it. But he can also bowl wide yorkers, or those on middle and off.Pace: He seldom attempts the slower yorker, which has a higher margin for error. Most of his yorkers clock 140 kph or more, which makes it difficult for batters to premeditate or to scoop him over the keeper.Length: Even when the ball misses the perfect yorker spot, he doesn't err by much, and such instances are rare. Even his missed yorker is a low full toss, and he seldom strays into the hittable good-length zone. Prince Yadav of Lucknow Super Giants bowls against Gujarat Titans at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow. (Photo by Surjeet Yadav / CREIMAS for IPL)In both games in New Zealand, Shreyas Iyer entrusted him with the last over. He leaked little, conceding just a four, a chancy one when Michael Bracewell scooped him over the wicket-keeper. Of the 12 balls, six were yorkers or just thereabouts; three were low full tosses, two were slower short balls. Just one delivery was good length and slow, the lone ball that found the fence. Two thirds of the yorkers/low full tosses landed on off-stump or just outside, denying batters the room to squeeze the ball past the wicket-keeper. He seldom veers onto the body, where smart batters would scoop or glide him through fine-leg.The field, which he often sets himself, portends his designs. The third man and long leg are deep and fine, in case the ball picks the edge. The mid-wicket region is near vacant, because it is incredibly difficult to butcher a full-blooded yorker that way. When there is excessive dew, the ball tends to drift away a fraction in the air for the left-hander, making him almost unplayable. The fields originate from his unflinching belief that his yorker would not go askance.The perfect yorker is harrowingly difficult to nuance, let alone repeat on a loop. Get it wrong and it becomes a long half-volley or a juicy full too. Get it too wide outside off, and competent batters could drill it between third man and backward point; let it drift onto the body, and quick hands could lump it over the keeper. Batters are not afraid to take them on. But Yadav does not let fear preoccupy him. “I can bowl six yorkers if I want to. I don’t fear if it turns out to be a full toss,” he once said in a press conference. India’s Prince Yadav, second left, celebrate with teammates the wicket of West Indies’ Shimron Hetmyer during the fourth T20 cricket match between India and West Indies in Hyderabad. (AP Photo)He lives by the Waqar wisdom that “you don’t bowl the yorker, but feel it.” “I am an attacking bowler. Even at the death I look to pick a wicket and not think of how I can stop a run,” he explains his credo to Aakash Chopra in his Youtube channel.Story continues below this adALSO READ | Prince Yadav’s journey: From 2-year ban to Kohli’s wicket in IPLHe knows he can beat them with his length, he knows he can hurry them with his pace. Glenn Phillips realised this in the second T20I when he shuffled across him. A fine improviser with quick hands and bat-speed, he missed the ball altogether and saw his stumps stunned. India’s bowling coach Morne Morkel explained why the team management trusts him with the last over. “What I like about him a lot is his mindset, the calmness that he brings with the ball in tight situations. If you look at the games that we have used him in so far, he has come into times where it’s very tough to bowl and I think he has done that exceptionally well,” said the South African.The 24-year-old has added other skills since switching to the leather ball. He has developed an evil out-swinger. He has the knack of producing the magic ball, like the one that smashed Virat Kohli’s stumps in an IPL game. The ball, released like a conventional out-swinger with the seam canted to the slips, pitched and tailed back a fraction to disarrange his stumps. The wicket was his claim to fame. But the yorker, he knows, is what made him. He thanks the distant days of tennis-ball cricket for it.