A useful bat lower down the order, Manoj Prabhakar was a right-arm medium pace bowler for India who made his ODI debut at Sharjah in April 1984 against Sri Lanka. He made his impact immediately as he ended up with match figures of 10-3-16-2. He was more a line and length bowler who used to contain the flow of runs than an attacking option for his captain. He bagged 4 wickets for 19 runs against Zimbabwe at Mumbai in 1987, his best bowling figures then, before bettering it with a five-wicket haul against New Zealand at Amritsar in 1995. He last played an ODI in 1996 having featured in 130 games with 157 wickets at an impressive economy rate of 4.27. Prabhakar, the batsman, had a wonderful time at the fag end of his career when he made all his 11 fifties in a space of two years. He also had a couple of centuries to his credit.

Prabhakar was included in the Test squad for the England series at home and he made his debut at his home ground, Feroz Shah Kotla. However, he was not selected again for a while and he returned to the Test team for India's tour of Pakistan in 1989. In the first Test match of the series at Karachi in 1989, which was also Sachin Tendulkar's debut match, Prabhakar bagged his maiden fifer before going one step further in the next Test at Faisalabad to claim 6 wickets in an innings. Since then he was a certainty in the side. He bagged his third fifer in Tests against Australia at Perth in 1992. The third Test against New Zealand at Cuttack in 1995 was his last appearance in the longest format of the game. His most noted performance with the bat came against West Indies in 1990 at Mohali when he scored his only century in Tests. He also made nine fifties.

He represented Delhi in first-class cricket and played over 150 games making 7469 runs with a highest of 229 alongside 385 wickets. He also flew to England and played for Durham in their domestic circuit.

After the 1996 World Cup, Prabhakar was dropped for India's England tour, to which the fast bowler voiced strongly against the then captain Mohammad Azharuddin and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). He also went on to accuse Azharuddin of match-fixing. He participated in Tehelka's sting operation of match-fixing in 1999 but was himself charged with involvement and was later banned by the BCCI. The controversy brought an end to an international career that spanned across 39 Tests and 130 ODIs.