'Riyan Parag not that big a player. Hasn't shown any progress': India legend slams RR youngster after poor IPL season
An India legend, also a World Cup winning all-rounder, was brutal in his assessment of Riyan Parag. In fact, he feels Parag is one of the few players who hasn't shown any improvement as the IPL has moved from one season to another.
Ever since Riyan Parag said that he wants to be the greatest finisher in Indian cricket, he has only managed to rub people off the wrong way. The Rajasthan Royals batter has been in the news more for his actions rather than his performance with the bat. Parag first draw the ire of fans when he mocked the third umpire after his catch of Marcus Stoinis was turned down, and later when he showed frustration at senior partner R Ashwin during a miscommunicated run-out. All this, after Parag ended the IPL 2022 season with a miserly 183 runs from 17 matches.
India legend and a former World Cup winning all-rounder Madan Lal was brutal in his assessment of Parag. In fact, Lal feels Parag is one of the few players who hasn't shown any improvement as the IPL has moved from one season to another. And it is hard to argue with the statement. In IPL 2019, Parag scored 160 runs from seven matches – his best season – while the following years, the 20-year-old youngster has tallied 86 runs from 12 matches in 2020 and 93 from 11 games in 2021.
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"Riyan Parag has played all matches but hasn't given a single performance. When you talk of him… he is not that big a player who can change the game. Until now, all the IPLs that have taken player, and all the players who have taken part, they all have shown improvement and stepped up. But this player (Parag) hasn't shown any progress given the number of chances he has got. The slot at which he plays is very important in T20 cricket. Because that is where you can accelerate and score runs. Now if you can’t score runs from there, your difficulties will only increase," Lal said on Sports Tak.
Despite his theatrics on the field, Parag has received strong backing from his coach cum director at Rajasthan Royals, Kumar Sangakkara. The Sri Lanka legend came out in defence of the under-fire Parag and said a promotion in the batting order from next season could bring out the best in him.
"I think Riyan Parag… he has got huge amount of potential, and we got to work him into higher batting number by the time we come in next season. I look forward to kind of grooming him to become a more of a kind of an early middle-order player rather than just a death-hitter. Because, I think he is so accomplished against spin as well as pace," the Sri Lankan batting great noted.
