IPL 2026
“He is a good player, but he doesn’t have form” – Aakash Chopra on Riyan Parag
By SMCS - Apr 28, 2026 5:40 pm
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Former India player turned commentator Aakash Chopra has added that the Rajasthan Royals (RR) are overreliant on their top order heading into their match against the Punjab Kings (PBKS). While saying that Riyan Parag is a good player, he added that the RR skipper is out of form. RR will take on PBKS in New Chandigarh on Tuesday, April 28. The visitors have 10 points from eight games and are placed fourth on the points table as well.

Riyan Parag
Riyan Parag

In a video shared on his YouTube channel, ‘Aakash Chopra,’ he said, “The overreliance on the top three is one of your problems. Runs haven’t been scored at Nos. 4, 5, and 6. Riyan Parag has scored 88 runs in eight matches. He will have to walk the talk. We say we are good, he is a good player, but he doesn’t have form. So you will have to accept that the form isn’t good. If Nos. 4, 5, and 6 don’t score the runs, for how long will the top three keep you relevant?”

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“In the last match as well, the runs got chased. You should have reached close to 250, and you were left 25 runs behind. So you understand that there is a middle-order problem, as Vaibhav Suryavanshi scored a hundred, and then the last four overs. For a variety of reasons, their batting and the Gujarat Titans’ batting look similar,” he again shared.

However, Aakash Chopra also stated that the IPL 2026 match between the Punjab Kings and the Rajasthan Royals would be a battle between their destructive opening pairs as well.

Priyansh Arya
Priyansh Arya

“It’s a battle between the openers on both sides. Prabhsimran Singh and Priyansh Arya are on one side, and Yashasvi Jaiswal and Vaibhav Suryananshi are on the other side. So it’s going to be a good game of cricket. It will be bat vs bat at the start,” he said.

“Rajasthan will try to stop Punjab somehow, which looks almost impossible. Let’s see if there is any team that can stop Punjab’s winning run. I am not sure whether even Rajasthan can do that job. I am not 100 percent certain,” Aakash Chopra concluded.