IPL 2024: ‘People Don’t Know Me Personally And Have…’

For the last five years in the Indian Premier League (IPL), Riyan Parag has smashed a total of 600 runs. Finally, for this new IPL 2024, he marked his arrival in the tournament, after finishing as the third highest run-getter with 573 runs in 14 innings at an average of 52.09 and a strike rate pf 149.21, shouldering on four half-centuries.
Riyan Parag’s role for the Royals has been quite incredible as he looked to play the role of the batter who would take on both the pacers and the spinners with the same intent, and getting a promotion to number four position helped him too.
‘When 50,000 people are watching you, every shot is being analysed’- Riyan Parag
The 22-year-old batter said that he didn’t make any drastic changes in his batting for success in this IPL 2024 season. He didn’t change either his mindset or his technique, but what he tried to do was stick to the basics and not putting some attention to doing extra-ordinary work.
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‘I didn’t make much of a change. Domestically, I play at No.4 for Assam and it was just a matter of time before I got into similar situations in the IPL. In the IPL, no matter who says it’s just a game, it’s a much bigger stage for the players.
So, it was just about implementing what I had been doing in domestic cricket. I didn’t change my mindset or technique. It was just about a general upgrade, repeating what I had been doing, sticking to the basics, and not trying to do something extraordinary,” Rajasthan Royals batter, Riyan Parag told the reporter during the Red Bull Campus Cricket Finals.
Parag also figured out that he wasn’t needed to please someone, especially after many commentators were watching the game.
‘When 50,000 people are watching you, every shot is being analysed and legends of the game are commentating, it’s straightforward to try and please someone. I figured I didn’t have to do that,” Riyan Parag expressed during the same interview.
With every single failure, the youngster was getting much mor mature. There were times, when he was failing and getting so much hate around the social platforms, but these are the things that helped him in getting matured.
‘Everyone says maturity comes with age, but I believe it comes with pain. The things I’ve suffered over the past two-three years. This suffering comes from outside because I’m out here in the sun working as hard as I can. Suffering is when you have hateful stuff coming your way from people you don’t even know.
These people don’t know me personally and have formed opinions based on my game. I started when I was around 17 and when you see stuff like this for years, it’s a big thing to digest. So, that’s matured me a lot,” Riyan Parag remarked.
This IPL season was all-about the batters nailing the big shots, as scores have been quite high, but the youngster feels that this may not continue for a long time, as in International cricket, everyone puts value on their wicket.
‘I think it was just a one-season thing. The Impact Player rule has, of course, changed things because now openers are just hands free and can smack from ball one.
I feel the rule might change and the IPL might go down differently in the future. It’s never going to happen in international cricket, right, so everyone has to value their wicket. You know you can’t lose your wicket off the first ball,” U-19 World Cup winning player from the 2018 edition predicted in the same discussion.
Also Read: IPL 2024: Riyan Parag Keeps Belief To Play For India After Spectacular Season
Riyan Parag also went against the ‘Impact Player’ rule, as he feels it’s taking the value of an all-rounder, and once the rule gets vanished, Parag himself could be the fifth or sixth bowler.
Riyan Parag also put light on what are the aspects India need to look up to going into the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.
‘I can never watch cricket as a fan, I’ll always do it as a player. I hate when people watch cricket as fans. If you do that, please don’t speak to me because there are very different perspectives.
People say a lot of things but they don’t understand all the intricacies. You’ve got to understand that winning a World Cup is a big thing, you can’t expect that going into the tournament,” Riyan Parag concluded.