During the SunRisers Hyderabad vs Rajasthan Royals (SRH vs RR) match in the 21st game of the IPL 2026 in Hyderabad, Praful Hinge made his historic IPL debut. The right-arm medium pacer shone in his first over of the IPL career, where he stunned everyone with three wickets.
SRH hosted the in-form Rajasthan Royals, who won their first four games of the season and started the game undefeated in the season. After SRH were sent to bat first, they scored 216/6 in 20 overs.
In reply, RR were in trouble in the very first over of the chase, where they ended at 1 run for 3 wickets. The 24-year-old Indian pacer Praful Hinge started his IPL career on a high, as it was his second T20 match, where he recorded a four-fer.
In his first IPL over, Praful dismissed Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Dhruv Jurel, and Lhuan-dre Pretorius all for ducks. In his next over, Praful picked up another wicket of RR captain Riyan Parag, who scored only four runs. Praful finished the game with the bowling figures of 4-0-34-4, as his powerful bowling helped SRH to win the match by 57 runs after bowling out their opponents for only 159 runs. Without any doubt, Praful won the Player of the Match award.
Praful Hinge's special records during his IPL debut
Praful became the first bowler in IPL history to record three wickets in the opening over of an innings.
After Shoaib Akhtar, Praful became the second bowler to record four wickets in the powerplay on IPL debut.
Who is Praful Hinge?
Praful has played 10 first-class matches and six List A games, where the right-arm medium fast bowler picked up 27 and five wickets, respectively. While the NECO Master Blaster won the inaugural Vidarbha Pro T20 League (2025), their pacer Praful finished as the joint fourth leading wicket-taker by taking eight wickets in six matches.
Earlier, Praful shone in the Indian youth cricket system when he took 26 wickets in the 2023/24 Under-19 CK Nayudu Trophy for Vidarbha U19.
While Praful earlier struggled with illegal bowling action, his turning point was spending time at the MRF Pace Foundation, where he travelled to Brisbane in Australia to set his bowling action. With his raw pace, Praful has the ability to produce strong bounces as well as effective yorkers.
