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Madhav Tiwari needed only his second proper IPL outing to stamp a bit of authority. Delhi Capitals chased 211 in Dharamsala on Monday evening – a ground record – and the 22-year-old all-rounder had a hand in most of it. Two wickets up top, then 18 not out from eight balls at the death; Delhi stay mathematically alive for the play-offs, Punjab Kings slip again.
The basics first. PBKS posted 210 for 5 on a pitch doing plenty off the seam, every one of the 39 overs delivered by quicks. Priyansh Arya’s 56 from 33 and late bursts from Liam Livingstone and Shashank Singh looked more than handy. Delhi replied with 211 for 6, Jake Fraser-McGurk’s blistering 76 setting things up before Tiwari’s cameo iced it.
Now to the bloke who tilted it. Picked out of the Madhya Pradesh T20 set-up, Tiwari had debuted last year against the same opposition, a match abandoned amid that brief India-Pakistan flare-up. One over for 14 back then; very different story this time.
“First of all, I would like to thank the management for giving me this opportunity and I’m lucky enough I was able to be on the winning side,” he said, still half-buzzing at stumps. “So the mindset is always that if things are not in your hand, you just try to be better in each and every practice session. I worked a lot of time with Munaf [Patel, DC bowling coach] sir, I worked on my bowling a lot and I worked on my range-hitting and stuff like that with our batting coach and it was fun and I was happy if I was able to contribute for the team.”
Contribution came early. Ninth over, length ball that nipped, Arya nicked behind. Final over, slower bouncer, Cooper Connolly mis-timed – 4-0-40-2 looks ordinary on paper but in a game where seamers travelled it was handy. “I think the wicket was helping the length ball,” Tiwari explained. “So I was kind of sticking to that early on the phase and I was trying to mix it with wide balls and short balls in between.”
Bat in hand, he walked out with Delhi wobbling. A near-yorker from Yash Thakur was carved through cover; next over, a pick-up six into the grass banks. “I would like to say I’m 100% bowler and 100% batsman,” he laughed when pressed on which discipline he prefers. The message from Ian Bell, he added, was simple: “So, the batting coach [Ian Bell] just told me, ‘you got the power, you got everything. Just don’t try to look to do something fancy. Just hold your shape and react to the ball’.”
Delhi shuffled the pack – five changes in all – and may finally have the extra balance they kept banging on about in April. They still need other results to go their way, but at least there is daylight.
Punjab, meanwhile, are in a rut. Four defeats on the bounce and, by Shreyas Iyer’s own admission, too many mistakes in the field. They shelled two chances on Monday, climbing to 19 drops for the season – comfortably the worst in the league. “I wouldn’t have to beat around the bush,” Iyer said. “I would say fielding and bowling again.” He felt the 210 should have been enough. “210 was 30 runs more on this wicket considering how the ball was seaming and there was variable bounce.”
There were questions about selection – why wasn’t the in-form Yuzvendra Chahal given a bowl until the 15th, why no extra spinner when the square looked dry? Iyer nodded, hinted at “match-ups”, but didn’t elaborate. He knows, and everyone else can see, that time is running out for course correction.
Delhi hop over to Kolkata next; Punjab have a short turnaround in Lucknow. Slightly different trajectories, same maths: win everything, hope the rest crumble. The usual late-season scramble, then, with a new name – Madhav Tiwari – suddenly in the conversation.
