Pressure brings out the best in me, says Ujjain Falcons all-rounder Madhav Tiwari
New Delhi, June 20 (IANS) Ujjain Falcons seam-bowling all-rounder Madhav Tiwari says it is in the tightest moments of a game that his game truly comes alive, while crediting a single-minded focus on winning for the team rather than personal milestones for his consistent performances in the Madhya Pradesh League (MPL) T20 Scindia Cup 2026.
Reflecting on his all-round show in the side beating Indore Pink Panthers, where he picked 3-22 and hit a valuable 31 off 34 balls, Tiwari put it down to a competitive streak in him that refuses to be satisfied. “If I want to speak personally, I would have taken one more wicket. Every cricketer has a little bit of greed, as we want to do as well as they can.
“If I had finished in the batting and remained not out, then I would have been a little more satisfied, obviously. But at the end, the team won, and it’s very nice,” he said in an exclusive conversation with IANS on Saturday.
Asked what allows him to thrive when games are on a knife-edge, Tiwari stated it boils down to keeping the team’s result above everything else. “I don’t know when the situation is tough or challenging. Either my brain works very well there, or I don’t know much, because when I play cricket, I have only one priority – how to get my team a win? So the pressure situation obviously triggers me a lot – like how can I get my team out of here?
“I need that thing very badly, and I think that in those particular pressure situations, maybe my brain works well. In all, I would like to say that the brain works well. Skills, obviously, like I’ve been playing cricket for like 8-9 years now. So the skills part is going well and will continue to improve. But it’s all mental when you are in a pressure situation and how badly you want to perform for your team,” he said.
Tiwari, who hails from Mauganj in Madhya Pradesh’s Rewa district and has been part of the Delhi Capitals set-up in the IPL for the last two seasons, said the experience of being in the franchise and sharing the dressing room with the likes of Axar Patel, KL Rahul, Tristan Stubbs, Mitchell Starc, and David Miller has hugely influenced his approach towards the game.
In IPL 2026, Tiwari had a breakthrough time by taking out Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Shubham Dubey, Priyansh Arya, and Cooper Connolly with his seam bowling skills and even hit a valuable cameo of 18 not out off eight balls to give DC a win over Punjab Kings in Dharamshala, thus earning him the Player of the Match award.
“It has been very, very helpful. I think I would like to say that as a cricketer, I focus on improving every year, and whether I am better this year than last year. When I came here from this IPL, I learnt a lot from my senior players. I had long conversations with them and with the coaches who have a lot of experience.
“I learnt a lot from them, and it was like, okay, I didn’t get a lot of opportunities there, but I will try to implement that in MPL. I will try to become more consistent. So those things helped me a lot,” he said.
On juggling both bowling and batting responsibilities, with his ‘I am a 100% batter and 100% bowler’ comment from IPL 2026 still fresh in the memory, Tiwari admitted the responsibilities as an all-rounder are demanding, but it gives him more than one way to influence a match’s outcome.
“Managing it happens because there is a lot of hard work. But there are a lot of results and benefits. Obviously, I also want to say that I want to contribute 100 percent in my fielding.
“So it happens that there is a lot of hard work, but sometimes you don’t have a good day of batting. But you can make a comeback and make your team win with your bowling. If you don’t have a day in bowling, you can make your team win with your batting. So I think it’s more or less just an excuse to make your team win at the end of the day,” he said.
The all-rounder also pointed to his fitness regimen as central to sustaining his game across formats and roles. “Obviously, it is helping a lot. As an all-rounder, your life revolves around working on your skills, and then you just focus on how to do recovery. If you look at it, your whole day is spent on it.
“You have to do well, you have to recover, and you have to mentally be less affected. You don’t have to think too much. So I think the more you stay mentally free, and the more you know what to do in a particular session, and then you work on those things, so I think it goes hand in hand,” he said.
Tiwari, who earned his Delhi Capitals contract on the back of his MPL performances, recalled how seriously he took the league from the very start. “I think there is a lot of happiness. I had a gut feeling when I played at the MPL for the first time and realised how important this platform is. I took it very seriously.
“I was waiting for a call from the franchise for the trials. Then the Delhi Capitals called me for the trials. On going there, it was very intimidating to see everyone. Obviously, they must have called all the best players in India for the trials.
“You have to be selected and go through them. In the beginning, it felt like a few hours or minutes. It was just that now that I have come here, I have to be selected. This was in my mind, and luckily, I was selected in my first year and was very fortunate for it,” he said.
With Ujjain Falcons facing long odds of a play-offs berth, Tiwari signed off by saying the focus has shifted to finishing the season strongly. “Our last match is still left to play. We were not lucky enough and missed crucial moments in some matches, and lost games. It is very tough for us to get qualified.
“I intend that it is our last match and we have to finish on a high note. Our focus is to give 200 percent in our last match, and whatever happens next will be taken care of.”
–IANS
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