IPL 2022: Who is Prerak Mankad? All you need to know about Punjab Kings' latest debutant

Making his debut for Punjab Kings (PBKS) in their final league stage encounter of IPL 2022 on Sunday (May 22) is Saurashtra allround cricketer Prerak Mankad. After warming the bench for the best part of two months, the uncapped Indian cricketer got the nod for his maiden IPL outing versus the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH). 

Mankad, the 28-year-old utility cricketer, was picked at the mega auction in Bangalore by PBKS with a bid of encouragement amounting to INR 20 lakhs. The bid came about after two successive good seasons for Saurashtra in the shortest format of the game. 

The batting allrounder smashed his 205 runs in the 2020-21 edition of the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 with an eye-catching strike-rate of 181.41 while averaging 51.25. The right-hander replicated his explosive run in the following edition of India's premier domestic competition, scoring 184 runs at 36.80 with a strike-rate of 136.29. 

Prerak Mankad enters the biggest T20 league with very healthy batting numbers in the shortest format domestically, with the aggressive player making his 543 runs at a strike-rate of 140.52. Mankad has also been an effective customer with his right-arm seam bowling and has taken 20 wickets with an economy rate of 8.61. 

Prerak Mankad enters the big league with IPL debut 

While the vote of confidence from PBKS has come about only now, Prerak Mankad has been around the domestic circuit and Saurashtra's healthy, flourishing set-up for a long time. The allrounder made his senior domestic debut back in February 2016 with the Ranji Trophy final against powerhouse Mumbai. 

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Arriving at No.9 with Saurashtra reeling at 108/7 on Day 1, Mankad produced a gutsy half-century, making 66 runs in his 142-ball stay to take his team to a respectable 235 all out. Despite that impressive start, the right-hander didn't really take the domestic red-ball game by storm in the years that followed as he averages only 33.08 at the first-class level. 

But Mankad's 50-over List A record, quite like his T20 numbers, is very impressive. He averages 39.79 with a strike-rate of 106.03 after his 43 matches in the 50-over version. He was outstanding with the bat in this winter's Vijay Hazare Trophy, averaging 94 with a strike-rate of 114.98 for his 376 runs. 

As it turned out, Mankad didn't have much to do on debut for PBKS. The 28-year-old wasn't required on the bowling front with his team restricting SRH to a modest 157/8 and faced just one delivery with the bat.

Making that one memorable, however, he dispatched SRH's in-form speedster Umran Malik for a boundary to close out the game and give PBKS' otherwise disappointing campaign a happy ending.