How Kaushik’s 207-run partnership with fellow centurion Rinku Singh steered them out of troubled waters was a testimony of Kaushik’s hard work and his relationship with Rinku. Kaushik, 28, and Rinku, 29, have known each other since Under-19 days and are so familiar with each other’s game. Their partnership took UP to a massive score of 540, which resulted in an innings win and seven points.
“It was a fresh and red-soil wicket and it had some moisture early on, so the ball was swinging,” Kaushik told Cricinfo. “It was a challenging situation but I really enjoyed it. Our main aim was to put together a partnership once the early wickets fell. I love batting with Rinku. We knew that if we dealt in singles and doubles and focus, then we would get the runs.”
Born in Delhi, Kaushik started playing cricket seriously at the age of 10. He used to train at the well-known Sonnet Club that also had players like Shikhar Dhawan and Aakash Chopra at the time. Among Kaushik’s contemporaries was also Rishabh Pant who is only three months older than him. He soon started playing Under-14 and Under-16 cricket for Delhi while being coached by Tarak Sinha. But soon Kaushik had to move with his family to Ghaziabad.
Kaushik’s family was originally from Saharanpur, and they were in Delhi for their business. They soon moved to Ghaziabad and once Kaushik appeared for trials there, he made it to the UP Under-19 team where he first met Rinku. One of the reasons Kaushik took to cricket was because his father was a sports lover and played football in the Delhi Under-19 team. When Kaushik was a kid, his father put up nets on the terrace and bowled underarm to him, and he eventually started training with a leather ball.
“My father supported me a lot. I would start practising in the morning, then go to school, then go to train at the academy and then finish the day by practising with papa at home,” he said.
“We had a good batch at the Sonnet Club. There was Rishabh Pant and some other players who would come to train there from UP. We used to have a lot of fun there. Seniors like Dhawan and Aakash Chopra used to really inspire us that we could do the same.”
“We all played together and had a lot of fun,” Kaushik remembers. “I was representing my country and wanted to give my 100% and I continue to do the same. My aim is to represent my country at the highest level.”
“I’ve been playing the guitar since I was 10. This puts me at ease off the field. I just write about whatever emotions I’m feeling and it helps me switch off from the game easily.”
Madhav Kaushik
In the 2021-22 season, he again couldn’t impress with his run tally of 75 runs from five innings but his maiden century finally came in 2022-23. The 2024-25 season was a breakthrough one for him: he scored 489 runs from seven innings to average nearly 70 and followed it with a season of 351 runs the year after to average 50.41. In those two seasons, he scored three centuries and four half-centuries, including a career-best of 185*.
Kaushik was reaping the rewards of the hard yards he had put in in foreign conditions, even if with the white ball.
“I played three seasons in the premier division in the UK during our off season, but I couldn’t go last year,” he says. “I found the wickets very challenging there because they are more moist. They also have a lot more grass there. The ball keeps moving through the day so one has to work a lot on timing the ball. I thought if I can adapt to the conditions there, it will help me a lot in India too.
“I also worked on my hard-hitting skills there which definitely helped me in white-ball cricket. Now I go out to bat with a lot more attacking mindset in the shorter formats.”
Apart from cricket, Kaushik also dabbles in music from time to time and packs his guitar along with his bat. He learnt music at the same age when he took to cricket and now he also writes songs, composes music, and also releases his songs on Spotify. He also jams with his team-mates in the team hotel.
“I’ve been playing the guitar since I was 10,” he says. “This puts me at ease off the field. I just write about whatever emotions I’m feeling and it helps me switch off from the game easily.”
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