‘Taking a lot of things to heart’: Riyan Parag breaks silence on criticism and social media trolls

It’s not easy to face relentless vicious attacks, especially when you’ve just crossed your teens, but in that sense, Riyan Parag’s cricketing journey has not been entirely a bed of roses. After scoring just 600 runs in 54 games in previous seasons, attracting merciless criticism, tons of trolls and memes on social media, Riyan 2.0 has exploded with renewed vigor in IPL 2024 and has so far Scored 284 points. He is second only to Virat Kohli in the run aggregator’s list.

There was no over-the-top celebration and his only statement was through his willow that he finally figured out how to deal with life from 22 yards out.

“Life outside cricket does affect you. That’s the biggest part of my career, that’s how I handle it,” Riyan said ahead of Rajasthan Royals’ IPL match against KKR on Tuesday.

In his previous seasons, he had never averaged more than 17 runs and his best return with the bat came in his maiden season when he scored a total of 160 runs in 7 games with 32 runs .

“It wasn’t great at first, I took a lot of things to heart, what people said about me and so on, whatever it was. I just had to figure out what was important to me and whose opinions mattered to me. Important, and I finally understood that, which was helpful,” Lijan said. When he scored a half-century against Bangladesh in last year’s Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy T20 tournament, he made a celebratory gesture to show that he was better than everyone else outstanding. He has faced a lot of criticism, sometimes rightly, for his on-field antics. More importantly, because the show wasn’t finished.

But things changed under the tutelage of Zubin Bharucha at the Royal Academy in Talegaon as he excelled in his game, fitness and in every domestic tournament this year.

His name has been widely known as a potential contender for India’s T20 World Cup in the United States and West Indies, but in reality, the Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe tours are more realistic chances for him to make the cut.

“To be honest, I haven’t really thought about the World Cup. If you had told me last year that I would be in this position, I wouldn’t have believed you,” Riyan said.

“So I’m really happy to be doing what I’m doing and I just want to keep going. I want to take it one game at a time and focus on how to win more games for the team because that’s what’s more important.

Before this IPL, Riyan had averaged 13.00 in 2022 and scored just 78 runs in seven games, but being promoted to the fourth spot by Kumar Sangakkara changed his career.

“As far as cricket is concerned, I think batting at No. 4 is something I’ve done in domestic cricket in different situations, more often than not actually. But yes, it’s emotional And a combination of skills. “I feel like I’ve contributed a lot to the team and that’s what I’ve been trying to do over the past few years but it hasn’t really worked out this time and I just want to keep going. Go down,” he said.