At 8:22 p.m. on Thursday, Riyan Parag’s pledge took off.
from Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur.
During the previous season, the same promise had repeatedly crashed and burned at the same location. That was the same location where, the day before, Rajasthan Royals head of cricket operations Kumar Sangakkara declared that Parag’s’maturing, understanding his game more, taking on more responsibility is non-negotiable’.
Up until then, for twenty balls, and well over thirty minutes, it was an all too familiar story. It wasn’t as though Parag was having trouble hitting the Delhi Capitals bowlers although the scoring rate was low. He was comfortably cruising through his innings at a pace slower than runs per ball, making little attempt to show off his offensive prowess. There is a tap, a nudge, and a slap everywhere. Sometimes mistimed a pull off Anrich Nortje, sometimes beaten by Kuldeep Yadav’s googly. At the end of the third wicket, R Ashwin, who had been put out to bat, had already hit three sixes and duly removed Kuldeep and Nortje from the game.
Even at that point, Parag had a relaxed, familiar appearance in the middle of the field. He was bouncing between wickets with his tucked-out t-shirt, looking as though he was gliding, and he exuded confidence like he was going to decide the outcome of the game. Not a trace that he had spent the better part of the previous two days mostly dozing off on the bed thanks to painkillers.
Then, in the midst of the 13th over, he was lifted over the deep mid-wicket fence for a distance of more than 70 meters when he rocked back to a rather short delivery from Kuldeep. A clear and concise declaration that he has batting experience beyond most players in the IPL
The top three batters for the Rajasthan Royals were all removed early on one of those infrequent days. They have been taking the brunt of the Royals’ batting for a number of years. Their sudden departure caused some anxiety for their Impact Substitution plans. Furthermore, scoring runs was proving difficult due to some tight bowling with the ball hanging on to the wicket.
They batted first for the second straight game, but despite having arguably the weakest lower order, they fielded five frontline bowling options. The deal they had was that they could use Nandre Burger as their sixth bowling option if they could save themselves from having to bat first, as they had done in the last game, against Rovman Powell. For that, Parag would have had to work extra hard, especially considering how difficult the dynamic role he was left to play was under pressure due to the low scoring rate.
Ashwin was promoted at the fall of the third wicket, and the Royals extended their batting innings as their first move to prevent the predicament. It was hardly the most unexpected move, considering that the Delhi Capitals’ two left-arm spinners, Axar Patel and Kuldeep, had the team positioned at 36 for 3 in 7.2 overs. However, the strategy ultimately worked out well for Parag and the Royals. James Hopes, the bowling coach for the Delhi Capitals, also acknowledged that Ashwin’s knock turned the tide of the match.
But even with Ashwin out of the game in the fourteenth over, the Royals were barely making runs above run-a-ball, and there were only two more players with batting experience left. That was when Parag went all out, cantering at a run-a-ball 26. Not by using force early on, but by timing and well-chosen shots.
The first person to be ripped apart was Khaleel Ahmed, who hasn’t always had the best of luck against RR. A slower ball tonked over covers for a four, a low full toss cut behind square for a boundary, and a delivery on the hips picked up for a six. In the ensuing overs, Parag scored 24 runs in 8 balls to surpass his half-century, a feat he had previously accomplished in 2019 after making his debut in the most well-known T20 league, to the contempt of both Kuldeep and Mukesh Kumar.
After a brief reversal of events by Nortje and Mukesh, the Royals were still held to 148 for 5 with ten balls remaining. Given how the surface had performed in the early half of the innings, a side that thought 150 would be a battling total felt that Parag had done enough to give the Royals bowlers what they wanted to fight back. However, it was well short of the required score at the challenging Jaipur venue.
On Thursday, Parag showed everyone a brighter side of his batting with his first IPL fifty since 2019.
However, he still had one more gear to go in his innings. In a last over of 25 runs, Parag, saving his best for last, destroyed Nortje with two enormous sixes, a long off and a deep mid wicket to lay the decisive marker in the match. Parag enhanced his status as a batsman by dethroning one of the fastest and most skilled death bowlers in the game right now.
With his final 19 balls for 58 runs, Parag’s 45-ball 84 put the Royals over 180, above the venue’s par total and far above the bowlers’ demands. Burger shared the new ball and Powell did not see any action, but the Delhi Capitals survived to the last over and lost by a mere 12 runs. It was sufficient evidence of how important Parag’s knock was.
But would the Royals be content if their long-term investment in a young player only resulted in them winning one game? It’s dubbed ‘coming of age’ for young players who are taking on major roles on the big stage. Not after five years of the story.
Was it self-control on the 22-year-old’s part to momentarily remove risk from his game despite the run-rate pressure? Was it self-control on his part to remain composed even while Ashwin, a much lesser-known batsman, was making batting appear easy and discouraging the bowlers from carrying out their strategies?
Similar to how Sangakkara determined that Parag’s “maturity” had changed the most between the previous IPL and this one, Suryakumar Yadav added his own evaluation to that about X. “A few weeks ago, I met a guy at NCA. He arrived with a minor ache. focusing on his skills with tremendous discipline and whole emphasis on his recuperation. It was also appropriate for me to tell one of the coaches present, “He is a changed guy.” RIYAN PARAG 2.0. Be cautious.”
The individual was aware of the shift in Parag. He showed everyone that he had improved as a batter on Thursday. Despite the erratic demands of Twenty20 batting, his team hopes that Parag’s promise, which has taken off, will continue to soar higher and farther before reaching its ultimate objective.
