Former India cricketer Madan Lal has criticized Rajasthan Royals youngster Riyan Parag for his poor performance in the recently concluded IPL 2022. Parag made his IPL debut in 2019 and failed to cross the 200-run mark in a single edition. This season he hit only a single half-century and hit 183 runs in 17 games which came at an underwhelming average of 16.64. Despite his below-par performances, Rajasthan Royals backed him and gave him all the matches this season.

Madan Lal has also said that the young batter didn’t show any progress this season despite getting a lot of chances in the playing XI. “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 Tak.

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The veteran has further talked about Parag’s batting position for Rajasthan and he also added that his difficulty will only increase if he failed to score in the upcoming season as well. Meanwhile, after the final, RR head coach Kumar Sangakkara has also opined on the criticism the youngster is getting and also said that he will make sure that Riyan gets proper grooming when he returns for the next edition as well.

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“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. 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 shared about Riyan Parag.