Shardul Thakur always felt a triumphant Indian Premier League return was on the cards, having helped the Lucknow Super Giants to their first victory of 2025 on Thursday.
Thakur went unsold in November's auction, but he was drafted in by Lucknow on the eve of the 2025 competition after Mohsin Khan failed to recover from an anterior cruciate ligament injury.
He finished with figures of 2-19 as Lucknow suffered a dramatic defeat to the Delhi Capitals in their opening match on Monday, before going two better on Thursday.
He took 4-34 as Lucknow eased to a five-wicket victory over Sunrisers Hyderabad, reaching their target of 191 with 23 balls in hand.
Thakur, now the Purple Cap leader for 2025 with six dismissals, never doubted that he would get another chance to excel in the IPL.
"I feel all these things keep happening in cricket," Thakur said. "It was just one bad day in the auction, I didn't get picked by any of the franchises.
"But unfortunately a few injuries here and there, there were a few enquiries whether I could join camps, but LSG approached me first, so I had to give them preference.
"And like I always say, skills are always there, talent is always there. It's just about the form, and bad days... you have to go through it in cricket."
Thakur's bowling played a key role in keeping Hyderabad's in-form batters at bay.
They fell just one run short of their own IPL record innings when beating the Rajasthan Royals on Sunday, finishing on 286-6.
But Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Abhinav Manohar and Mohammed Shami all fell victim to Thakur, who called on more bowling attacks to take the game to the Sunrisers.
He said: "They are always coming hard at bowlers, so why don't bowlers go hard at them?
"The talk was around what the plan should be, and we collectively said, 'let's go hard at them, let's take our chances'.
"If we got early wickets then we were in the game because they have been scoring heavily on flat pitches, and we had to take our chances. Today I think it fell in our pockets."
The Super Giants return to action next Tuesday against the Punjab Kings.