Ram Niwas, a retired ASI from the Railway Protection Special Force, remembers the afternoon Prince called home before boarding the team bus during the IPL, as he did every match day, to say he had been picked for India for the first time. “Mere samajh main nahin aa raha itni jaldi yeh sab kaise ho gaya,” he said. I cannot believe how this could happen so quickly.

Prince grew up in Dariyapur Khurd, a quiet village on the southwestern edge of Delhi. His cousin Vikram, the first in the family to study at an English medium school, had named him. He wanted something different for his nephew, a name that didn’t fit the village. No academies. No family history in cricket. The only reference point in the area was Virender Sehwag from Najafgarh, 15 kilometres away. Ram Niwas’s salary as a railway security officer was not built for chasing a dream that might never arrive.

“He had this junoon for cricket. But we were from Dariyapur Khurd. I couldn’t give him money to chase something that might never come. I told him, force, police, something solid. He passed the Delhi Police physical. He wouldn’t take the written exam.”

When Ram Niwas pushed, Prince pushed back. “Agar 145-150 kph main ball daalta, toh kaun mujhe rokega?” If I bowl at 145-150 kph, who is going to stop me? The father had no answer for that. He had only fear.

The phrase that kept coming back to him was the one he’d say to Prince’s mother Santosh: Tum Prince ko bigaad rahi ho. You’re ruining him by letting him play. Santosh said nothing. She kept watching her son cross half the city on public transport before dawn, bowl for hours at Amit Vashisht’s academy near Shastri Nagar, and come home exhausted to go again the next morning. They didn’t have a scooter. Prince went anyway.

Ram Niwas lay awake those years. His son was twenty, twenty-one, bowling in a village while boys his age were in uniform or climbing bureaucratic ladders. A railway pension, a government structure, the fixed thing. That safety was not available to Prince. Vashisht, whose academy sat walled by jamun trees, saw the talent from the first session. A born talent who just needed to switch mentally from rubber to leather.

Then came 2019. Prince, then 18, fudged his age to play Delhi U-19s, cutting four years off his papers. The BCCI found out and handed him a two-year ban. “Bas, iska khel khatam. His cricket is finished. Why would anyone give him another chance?” Ram Niwas thought.

The lockdown arrived and swallowed those two years. When Prince came back in 2023, he was a net bowler. That was the ceiling Ram Niwas could now see.

The Delhi Premier League in 2024 changed everything. Representing Purani Dilli-6, the side led by Rishabh Pant, Prince took 13 wickets including the first hat-trick in DPL history. LSG bid Rs 30 lakh at the IPL auction in November. The family sat in front of the television. When the auctioneer called his name, the wrong face appeared on screen, a batter from Ghaziabad. After two phone calls, the confusion lifted. By midnight, the entire village knew.

This IPL season, Prince took 11 wickets in six games for LSG, finishing ahead of Mohammad Shami in the franchise wicket-taker list. Chief selector Ajit Agarkar explained the selection simply: “He had a good Vijay Hazare Trophy, backed that with the IPL performance.”

But the moment that made him nationally known came earlier, with a single delivery to Virat Kohli. The backstory belongs to Kohli himself. In an earlier meeting during the league, Kohli had advised Prince to develop an inswinger. Prince worked on it. And when they met again in the middle, he used that exact ball to breach Kohli’s defence and bowl him out.

“The entire village celebrated,” Ram Niwas said. “Aur woh bhi aise waise nahin, bowled karke liya hai, farak padta hai.” Not just any wicket. He bowled him. That makes a difference.

Saturday’s selection for the Ireland and England T20I tour puts Prince in a 15-man squad led by Shreyas Iyer, alongside Arshdeep Singh, Harshit Rana and Mohammed Siraj. From Dariyapur Khurd to an England tour.

Ram Niwas sits quieter these days. The trophies line the living room wall. His wife Santosh moves past him toward the kitchen without saying anything. She does not need to. She had been saying it for years.

“I was wrong,” Ram Niwas says. “I told him cricket would leave him with nothing. I didn’t believe the dream was possible from a village like ours.”

He pauses. “An India shirt. That’s what I want for him now.” He has one. And he is taking it to England.