In his first game of IPL 2026 and his second official game overall in the league, Madhav Tiwari made an impact with both ball and bat, against Punjab Kings, keeping Delhi Capitals‘ slim playoffs hopes alive and winning the Player-of-the-Match award. The 22-year-old allrounder said that he had been sharpening his skills at the nets to be ready to deliver for his team.

He had actually made his debut against PBKS last May, which was called off midway through the first innings, due to cross-border tensions between India and Pakistan at the time, and later played again. Tiwari had bowled just one over in that game, conceding 14 runs, and didn’t make the team when it was replayed.

“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,” Tiwari said after helping DC beat Punjab Kings. “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.”

On a surface that offered so much seam movement that all of the 39 overs in the match were bowled by fast bowlers, Tiwari came in as DC’s fifth bowler and struck in his first over, the ninth of the match, to dismiss a well-set Priyansh Arya for 56 off 33 balls. Then, in his final over, he got the better of Cooper Connolly with a slower bouncer to finish with figures of 4-0-40-2.

“I think the wicket was helping the length ball,” Tiwari said. “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.”

Tiwari wasn’t done yet. His unbeaten cameo – 18 off eight balls, including two fours and a six – was vital to DC sealing a chase of 211. It was the highest successful T20 chase by any team in Dharamsala.

Plucked out of the Madhya Pradesh T20 league, Tiwari considers himself a genuine allrounder. “I would like to say I’m 100% bowler and 100% batsman,” he said.

He showed glimpses of his batting potential when he scythed a near yorker from Yash Thakur to the boundary. “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’.”

DC made five changes on Monday and seem to be found a promising allrounder who could give them the balance that they’ve been searching for.

Shreyas Iyer: Bowling and fielding cost us the game

Reflecting on PBKS’ fourth successive defeat, their captain Shreyas Iyer has said that their bowling and fielding cost them the game on Monday after they had put up 210 for 5. They missed two chances offered by DC and in all they have dropped 19 chances, the most by any team this season.

“I wouldn’t have to beat around the bush,” Iyer said. “I would say fielding and bowling again. “210 was 30 runs more on this wicket considering how the ball was seaming and there was variable bounce.

When asked why Yuzvendra Chahal, the leading wicket-taker in the history of the IPL, didn’t bowl a single delivery in PBKS’ defence, Iyer said: “There was absolutely a thought [of bowling him] but the way the ball was seaming and helping spinners, I think if we could have executed our lines and lengths precisely, we could have extracted wickets. But unfortunately we didn’t.”