When the Tail Wags: Prince Yadav’s Six Balls & Cricket’s Unlikely Batting Heroes

Thirteen runs do not usually get a captain talking.

They sit near the bottom of a scorecard, below the half-century, the blazing opening stand and the middle-order contributions. A useful addition. A few more runs to defend. Then the conversation moves on.

Shreyas Iyer made sure it stopped at Prince Yadav.

“Even Prince coming and playing that cameo at the end, those were useful runs, I felt,” the Indian captain said after the 14-run victory over West Indies in Indore on Sunday.

Six balls. Thirteen unbeaten runs. Three fours.

Prince had walked in at No. 10, a position from which expectations tend to be modest and instructions brief. He finished with a strike rate of 216.67. India reached 223; West Indies finished on 209/7.

The score was small. The company it placed him in was unusual.

Prince reportedly became only the third Indian batting at No. 10 or No. 11 to hit at least three boundaries in a T20 International. S Sreesanth hit four against New Zealand in Johannesburg in 2007. Ravichandran Ashwin hit three against England in Kolkata in 2011.

Then came a gap of 15 years. Prince closed it in six balls.

THE RUNS THAT SURVIVED THE COLLAPSE

For a while, India’s innings appeared to belong entirely to the men at the top.

Abhishek Sharma and Ishan Kishan added 108 for the second wicket. At 115/1, India had the platform for a formidable total. Then wickets began to puncture the innings. The score became 135/5, and a batting performance that had promised abundance suddenly required repair.

Tilak Varma, Nitish Kumar Reddy and Axar Patel supplied important runs. Further down, Arshdeep Singh made 11 from eight balls at No. 9. Prince followed at No. 10 with his three boundaries; Mayank Yadav, the last man, was bowled for a first-ball duck.

That batting order matters. Arshdeep and Prince both contributed to India’s cushion, but only Prince’s innings belongs to the specific No. 10/11 milestone.

It also matters how we describe their influence. Prince’s 13 cannot simply be subtracted from India’s total to construct an alternative result. A smaller target changes the demands of a chase, and potentially the choices made by both sides.

What his cameo demonstrably supplied was room.

When Shamar Springer’s late hitting threatened to make the finish uncomfortable, India had runs in reserve. Iyer’s acknowledgement captured the value of that contribution without dressing it up as a grand innings.

Cricket has a long history of such interventions. Sometimes the tail produces an astonishing score. Sometimes its greatest achievement is remaining at the crease long enough for somebody else to finish the job.

RAMPAUL’S REPLY

West Indies know the first kind well.

In December 2011, at Visakhapatnam, they were 170/9 against India. The innings appeared almost complete. Ravi Rampaul, batting at No. 10, extended it with an unbeaten 86 from 66 balls.

He and Kemar Roach added 99 for the last wicket, taking West Indies to 269/9. Rampaul’s innings surpassed the then ODI benchmark for a No. 10: Mohammad Amir’s unbeaten 73 against New Zealand in Abu Dhabi in 2009.

India still won, with Virat Kohli making a century.

That outcome makes Rampaul’s innings a useful part of this story. A tail-end rescue can transform the contest without settling it. He had given West Indies a total to bowl at and forced India to pursue a substantially larger target than had seemed likely.

The apparent end of an innings had become the beginning of its most unexpected chapter.

THE MEN WHO NEARLY MADE HUNDREDS

Six months later, another West Indian fast bowler pushed the idea further.

Tino Best arrived at No. 11 against England at Edgbaston in June 2012 and made 95. With Denesh Ramdin, he added 143 for the final wicket, helping West Indies reach 426.

At the time, nobody batting at No. 11 had scored more in a Test innings.

The number itself carried the drama. Ninety-five. Five short of a century from the position normally associated with the last wicket rather than the next milestone.

A year later, Ashton Agar went three runs further.

The Australian was 19, making his Test debut in the opening Ashes match at Trent Bridge. Australia were 117/9 when he joined Phil Hughes. Agar made 98, and their last-wicket partnership produced 163 runs.

He had surpassed Best’s benchmark and brought a Test century within two runs of the final batting position.

Prince’s cameo belongs on a different scale. Six balls in a T20I cannot be weighed against a long Test counterattack. The connection lies in the surprise: the batting order suggests the innings is running out of resources, and the man near its bottom reveals another one.

WHEN THE BOWLER BORROWS THE BATTER’S JOB

Trent Boult provided New Zealand with his own version later in 2013.

Batting at No. 11 against Bangladesh in Chattogram, he made an unbeaten 52 and helped BJ Watling add 127 for the last wicket. New Zealand reached 469.

The following year, James Anderson and Joe Root took India through an even longer ordeal at Trent Bridge.

Anderson made 81 from No. 11. Root finished unbeaten on 154. Their last-wicket stand of 198 established a new Test record at the time and gave England a first-innings lead of 39.

India had experienced the happier side of that unusual match, too: Mohammad Shami made an unbeaten 51 at No. 11. The BCCI’s account noted that it was the first Test in which both teams’ No. 11s scored half-centuries.

Such innings rearrange the opposition’s workload. Bowlers who expected to finish must return for another spell. Fielding plans need revision. The recognised batter at the other end acquires time and freedom.

The last wicket begins charging interest.

SIX RUNS CAN BE ENOUGH

The most revealing comparison, however, may be an innings smaller than Prince’s.

In Durban in February 2019, Sri Lanka’s Vishwa Fernando made six not out from 27 balls.

He was batting at No. 11. When he arrived, Sri Lanka still needed 78 runs to beat South Africa. Kusal Perera was at the other end, playing an extraordinary innings, but one more wicket would end the chase.

Fernando stayed.

Perera finished on 153 not out. Their unbeaten 78-run partnership delivered a one-wicket victory. Fernando’s six runs occupied a small space on the scorecard; his survival occupied a large space in the result.

Here is the difficulty with judging tail-end batting by the total alone.

Rampaul’s 86 gave his team a competitive score. Agar’s 98 rescued an innings. Anderson’s 81 helped create a lead. Fernando’s six kept a winning possibility alive.

Each contribution answered a different need.

PRINCE’S PLACE IN THE STORY

In Indore, Prince’s task was compressed into the remaining deliveries.

He found three boundaries. He finished unbeaten. His captain noticed.

The larger victory still required Abhishek’s 69, contributions through the order and the bowlers’ work in restricting West Indies. Prince’s cameo earned its place within that collective effort.

The 15-year statistical link to Ashwin gives those six balls a historical peg. The wider cricketing history gives them meaning.

Near the bottom of the batting list, a player can still alter the demands of a match. He can add a target’s final layer, deny a bowler the expected wicket or keep the recognised batter company through an improbable chase.

On Sunday, Prince needed only six balls to make his contribution. By the end of the evening, Iyer was still talking about them.