Rain may have cut short what could’ve been an ideal start — a century — to this domestic season for Manoj Tiwary as the Irani Cup match was called off when he was unbeaten on 80, but the Delhi Daredevils player is confident that he will be able to carry on the same form throughout the season, including the Champions League for which he was rushed to the Capital on Monday evening.

Apart from the promising start, the Bengal batsman’s confidence stems from the return of three former team mates for his state team.

“I don’t know too much about the combinations in the Champions League in the absence of AB de Villiers even though I was named the replacement. But in the domestic season, I will be able to play more aggressively than in the last two seasons. The return of Rohan (Gavaskar), Abhishek (Jhunjhunwala) and Deep (Dasgupta) from the Indian Cricket League (ICL) will relieve the pressure on me. I will be a different batsman,” Tiwary told the Sportline, adding, “Over the last two years I had to be in a defensive mode as there was the responsibility of taking the team back to the elite league (Bengal were got promoted to the elite group of the Ranji Trophy last season).”

king forward
Tiwary turns a deaf ear to talk of being on the fringes and quickly moves forward to his plans for the upcoming season. But as the 23-year-old rolls out a few statistics, his Bradmanesque average of 99.50 that ushered him as the next big thing in Indian cricket two seasons ago comes to the mind.

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