Former India cricketer Madan Lal criticized Rajasthan Royals youngster Riyan Parag for his underwhelming show in the recently concluded IPL 2022. Parag made his IPL debut in 2019 and he has been unable to cross the 200-run mark in a single edition. This season he scored a single half-century and hit 183 runs in 17 matches at an underwhelming average of 16.64. Despite his below-par performances, Rajasthan backed him and selected the 20-year-old in all matches this season.
The 1983 World Cup winner Lal said that the young batter didn’t show any progress this season despite getting regular chances in the XI.
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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,” Lal said on Sports So.
The 71-year-old further talked about Parag’s batting position for Rajasthan and said his difficulty will only increase if he failed to score from there.
“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.
Meanwhile, after the final, RR head coach Kumar Sangakkara acknowledged the criticism the youngster is receiving and said that he will make sure that he gets proper grooming when he returns for the next season.
“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 a 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,” Sangakkara elaborated.
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