During Day 1 of the second round of Duleep Trophy, India A’s Riyan Parag made an electrifying start to his innings. He raced to 37 off just 28 balls, smashing five fours and a six during his stay at the crease. However, it came crashing down for the youngster when he attempted a cover drive against Arshdeep Singh, but found a thick outside edge that carried to the first slip.
Parag got solid starts across both innings in the first round of the Duleep Trophy too; against India B, he scored 30 and 31 across the two innings, but couldn’t convert the scores. In Anantapur, Parag squandared another big opportunity, and former Pakistan cricketer Basit Ali wasn’t too pleased with the Indian youngster.
Taking to his official YouTube account, Basit warned Parag that the youngster is ruining a potential opportunity to present his contention for the longest format, and that he is too focused on white-ball cricket.
“He has a lot of talent, and he’s such an effortless player. He hit that straight six today over mid-off, it was top-class. But he isn’t justifying that talent. He has to play session by session. Just like (Shreyas) Iyer, he is also getting aggressive. I admit, you have to counter-attack, but once you succeed in that, you should focus on prolonging your innings,” Basit said.
The former Pakistan player further stated that Parag will be competing for places which will be vacated in the next “2-3 years.”
“These are the days where Riyan Parag needs to capitalise and score big. There’s New Zealand series, then Australia series. Don’t focus on white-ball matches. You’ve got the no.4. In the previous match, he played aggressive, too. Here, you had already scored 30-35 runs, you can’t give your wicket like that. He has to take care of that. And the coaches need to talk to him, tell him this isn’t the way,” said Basit.
“His competition is against some very big players. We all know who are they; they’re going to retire in 2-3 years. He has to perform as much as he can.”
Parag in Team India
Riyan Parag made his Team India debut in July earlier this year during a T20I series against Zimbabwe. He was eventually selected in both, T20I and ODI squads for the tour of Sri Lanka. While he hasn’t made a mark with the bat, Parag did produce solid performances as a bowler in the limited international outings.