Riyan Parag has been finally repaying the faith the team management kept on him over the years. He once again played a great knock in IPL 2024 against Mumbai Indians. Parag, who started his IPL journey in 2019, began in a promising fashion as he scored 160 runs in five innings, which came at an average of 32, in his maiden season. But he has crossed 100 just once in four editions and ended up with averages of below 20 in each. But this season he has finally stepped up with the bat.
“Nothing, to be honest,” Riyan Parag told the broadcasters when he was asked what differently he has done this season. “Actually I have simplified everything instead of trying to do a lot of things. Before when I was not getting runs, I would think about it too much, try and do different stuff altogether, and then it would not work out. This year the goal was to keep it simple – watch the ball and hit the ball.”
On a Wankhede wicket that helps the bowlers, Rajasthan Royals lost Yashasvi Jaiswal early in the chase and then Sanju Samson and Jos Buttler also got out quickly to leave the team at 48/3 in a chase of 126. But Riyan Parag scored an unbeaten 54 in 39 deliveries, which included five fours and three sixes as well.
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“I have said it before, when I play domestic (cricket) this is the exact type of situation I go in to bat. When Jos [Buttler] bhai got out, and Ash [R Ashwin] bhai got out a little after, I was like, ‘okay, this is what I do. This is what I’ve been doing for the last six months playing domestic cricket’. So it was pretty simple to calculate everything,” he said.
Speaking about his transformation in the IPL, Parag said: “I’ve had three-four years of not performing at all, or even performing if it’s one match a season. You really go back to the hotel room and think to yourself that when you know you can do something and it’s not coming, the performances are not coming, you get back to the drawing board.
“I tried finding what was wrong and I figured out that I was not practising at this level enough. So I went back after the (2023) season and practised very hard. And I think that’s showing now. I practised these types of balls, these types of scenarios a lot. Hence the performances,” he concluded.
