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Kumar Sangakkara said this weekend that when he watches Riyan Parag bat he is hitting the ball off the middle and just not getting the runs and that sometimes in T20 cricket that is simply how it goes.
The captain is failing and the team is covering for him and that cannot last
It was a gracious thing to say and probably the right thing to say publicly and it is also only partially true. Riyan Parag has 61 runs in six innings this season at an average of 12.21 and has been taking nine balls on average to lose his wicket.
Against KKR at Eden Gardens he was bowled by Varun Chakravarthy for 12 off 14 after being completely bamboozled by the spinner, a man who against spin this season has seen his strike rate collapse to under 100 which is a genuinely alarming number for a player who made his reputation hitting massive sixes over midwicket.
The Royals are winning despite this. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi at 15 years old is striking at 275 in powerplays. Yashasvi Jaiswal is providing foundation at the top. Jofra Archer and Nandre Burger are taking wickets at the right times.
But the captain Riyan Parag is averaging 12 and nobody outside the RR dressing room is pretending that is fine and some people inside it probably are not pretending either.
The captaincy has clearly taken something from his batting and Riyan Parag needs to find a way to take it back
In 2024, Riyan Parag scored 573 runs in an IPL season and announced himself as one of the most exciting middle order batters in the country. That version of Riyan Parag was fearless and instinctive and played within his strengths in a way that made opposition captains plan specifically around him.
The 2026 version is a man caught between two roles he cannot fully commit to simultaneously. The captaincy has brought genuine tactical maturity, his field settings have been bold and his trust in his bowlers has been rewarded with results. But the mental load of captaincy is visibly bleeding into his batting in a way that is producing the worst of both worlds.
Riyan Parag is neither anchoring innings with the patience of a proper number four nor attacking with the freedom that made him dangerous in 2024. Against RCB he scored 3 off 5 and was bowled. Against SRH it was 4 off 6. Against KKR today it was 12 off 14 before Varun Chakravarthy ended the experiment.
Three consecutive single-figure or barely-above-single-figure scores from a captain who was supposed to be the match-winner in the middle overs is a pattern that Sangakkara's diplomatic press conference answers cannot fully paper over however well he chooses his words.
- vs CSK, 14*,11, Not Out
- vs GT, 8, 4, Caught
- vs MI, 20, 10, Caught
- vs RCB, 3, 5, Bowled
- vs SRH, 4, 6, Caught
- vs KKR, 12, 14, Bowled
Kris Srikkanth said Parag is only there for style and doing nothing with the bat. That is harsh. It is also not entirely wrong and the scorecard across six innings is what gives that kind of criticism its traction.
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Rajasthan Royals are winning now but the middle order cannot keep functioning with a blank
The reason RR have been able to absorb Parag's failures so far is the sheer scale of the starts that Sooryavanshi and Jaiswal have been providing at the top. When a 15 year old is striking at 275 in powerplays and your opening pair is regularly putting you in a position where the middle order needs to do very little the captain's average becomes a footnote rather than a headline.
But this is also the most fragile kind of team balance in T20 cricket, one that depends on two specific batters firing in the powerplay every single match and leaves almost no structural contingency when they do not. Sooryavanshi scored a golden duck against SRH and RR lost that game heavily. Parag scored 4.
When the top does not fire and the captain cannot compensate the team has nowhere to go and 155 for 9 against KKR today, the kind of total that depends on the bowlers having a perfect day to defend, is what that combination looks like in practice. Archer and Jadeja are good enough to defend many things. They need not be constantly asked to chase totals which were made possible because of their captain’s batting efforts.
Their win ratio is quite flattering currently. Riyan Parag has the talent to fix it. The question is whether the captaincy weight lifts enough for him to remember that.
