Rajasthan Royals (RR) and Assam cricketer Riyan Parag had a brilliant run in the Deodhar Trophy. He finished as the leading run-scorer in the tournament, with 354 runs in 5 innings. The runs came at an average of 88.50 and strike rate of 136.88. It included 2 centuries and 1 fifty as well. His poor run in IPL 2023 wherein he scored just 78 runs from 7 matches meant that he had gone off Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) selectors’ radar. But his returns in the Deodhar Trophy has helped him push his case again for a national call-up.
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Parag gets mercilessly trolled on social media, more for his theatrics on the field and tweets off the field. It is also true that Parag has not been able to live up to the expectations in IPL where he bats lower down the order, a position he does not very much like. His poor show gets him hate, do does his social media update.
Parag feels he get hate on social media because he does not follow the cricket rulebook. “I have an idea why people hate me. There is a rulebook about how you should play cricket. The T-shirt should be tucked in, the collar should be down, give respect to everyone, don’t sledge anyone, and I am completely the opposite,” Parag told Indian Express.
The 21-year-old represented India at ICC Under 19 World Cup in 2018. Some of his teammates from the 2018 squad have gone on to play for India, including Shubman Gill, Prithvi Shaw, Shivam Mavi and Arshdeep Singh. Parag, despite abundance of talent, is still to break the door. He cites his batting position as one reason why he has been unable to make it to the national team. Parag says, unlike Gill and Shaw, he bats at No 6 or 7 consistently across tournaments which does not help.
Calling himself a ‘proper all-rounder’, Parag says that he will continue to share his opinion on social media without caring about the trolls.
Parag agrees that his good show in Deodhar Trophy has brought him back into the prospects for national call-up but he knows one bad knock will have trolls come back hard at him. “I had a decent Deodhar Trophy, and now people are saying what a talent. Tomorrow I will fail in one game and people are going to talk s**t about me. There is no point giving a thought to those faceless trolls. No one has come down to me and told me their exact problem with me,” he says.
Riyan also talked loosely about a Virat Kohli advice while also mentioning that R Ashwin has helped with his wealth of knowledge, telling him about how to bowl in different conditions and with different variations. Apart from 354 runs, Parag also picked up 11 wickets in Deodhar Trophy 2023.