“Took A Lot Of Things To Heart”: Riyan Parag Breaks Silence On Criticism, Social Media Trolling

Facing relentless trolling is not simple, particularly when you’ve barely crossed teenagers however Riyan Parag’s cricketing journey hasn’t precisely been a mattress of roses in that sense. After solely 600 runs from 54 matches throughout earlier seasons that invited cruel criticism, heavy responsibility trolling and meme-fest on social media, Riyan 2.0 has burst onto the IPL 2024, with renewed vigour that has to this point yielded 284 runs. He is just second to Virat Kohli in run aggregator’s listing.

There aren’t over-the-top celebrations, his solely statements have come via his willow and at last he understood find out how to cope with life past 22 yards.

“Life on the outside of cricket really affects you. And that’s one big major part which has played in my career is how I deal with it,” Riyan mentioned forward of Rajasthan Royals’s IPL sport in opposition to KKR right here on Tuesday.

He has by no means had a mean of greater than 17 in his earlier seasons and his finest ever return with the bat was in his maiden 12 months, when he aggregated 160 from seven outings at 32.00.

“It didn’t really start out well, I took a lot of things to heart, that were being said about me, etc, whatever it was. I just had to figure out what mattered to me, whose opinions mattered to me, and I figured that out eventually And that has helped,” mentioned Riyan, who throughout final 12 months’s Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy T20 event after scoring a half-century in opposition to Bengal, had made a celebratory gesture that he’s reduce above everybody. He confronted plenty of criticism, at instances rightly so, for his on-field antics. More so, as a result of performances weren’t coming via.

But underneath Zubin Bharucha’s steerage on the Royals Academy in Talegaon, issues modified as he labored exhausting on his sport, health and outcomes confirmed in each home event this 12 months.

His identify is doing rounds as a doable contender within the Indian staff for the T20 World Cup in USA and West Indies however realistically, itis the tour of Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe, the place he has extra life like probability of creating the reduce.

“I”m not likely interested by it (World Cup) to be very sincere. If you informed me final 12 months I’d be on this place, I’d not consider you,” Riyan said.

“So I’m simply actually glad to be doing what I’m doing, and I simply wish to proceed that. I wish to take it one sport at a time, and give attention to how I can win extra matches for the staff, as a result of that is extra necessary.

Before this IPL, Riyan averaged 13.00 in 2022 aggregating simply 78 runs from seven matches however being promoted to No. 4 by Kumar Sangakkara has modified the course of his profession.

“Cricketing-wise, I think playing at No. 4 is, again, something which I’m used to doing in domestic cricket in different situations, more common situations, actually. But yeah, it’s been a mix of both, emotionally and skill-wise.” “I feel i’ve been contributing a lot to the team and that’s what I’ve been trying to do for the last few years, it hasn’t really clicked. This time it has and I just want to continue that,” he mentioned.