Riyan Parag has done really well in leading Rajasthan Royals as the side are currently placed in the third position of the IPL 2026 points table with five wins from seven matches. However, the same can’t be said about his batting form this season.
The 24-year-old has returned with just 81 runs in seven games at an average of 13.50 and a strike rate of 117.39, with his highest score being 20 against the Lucknow Super Giants.
However, ahead of the Royals match against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Saturday, Parag has received support from the head coach, Kumar Sangakkara.
Thye former Sri Lanka captain believes that Parag is batting really well, he just needs to get some runs under his belt.
“I think he’s batting really well. When you’re batting well, sometimes you don’t always score. I would have been concerned if he wasn’t hitting the ball well. I think he’s hitting it really well. He just needs to stitch together a few more runs so that he sets himself a good platform to attack in the end,” said Sangakkara during the pre-match press conference.
“As a player, as a batter, the franchise backs him 100 per cent. And what’s really exciting for me is to see how he has just embraced the captaincy and the leadership. And you can see even in the last game how good a captain he was. So, I think he will learn more and more about pressure, and he will get better,” he added.
Asked why was Parag picked as the skipper of RR, Sangakkara explained the reasons behind the management’s decision to choose the youngster as the captain.
“More than anyone else’s influence, why we chose Riyan as captain is that his learning curve has been steep. He has learned a lot from others, but more importantly, from himself. I’ve never seen a young player under so much pressure from the start of his career in RR. Riyan was, a lot of the time, front and centre in a lot of our social media. He was always put out there,” Sangakkara said.
“Because he was an exciting young cricketer and had this aura about him. A pretty good-looking guy as well. But that also brings with it a lot of pressure. And sometimes it’s unfair to have such a young guy be under that pressure. I think he has learned a lot from those experiences,” he added.
