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Follow UsPolarising opinions aren't new in a country of 1.4 billion people. It most definitely isn’t new when it comes to cricket, cinema or politics.
But for Riyan Parag, who was trying to make cricket work for the rest of his life, polarising opinions began at the age of 16. When someone’s last few years as a teen has coincided with such opinions floating around, it is often difficult to rise above hate.
The opinions most definitely weren't sitting on the fence kind of when it comes to Parag. Either he should play for India, or he shouldn’t play cricket at all. But Parag has been a flagbearer of proving people wrong, especially in such a way that the stance has completely shifted narratives.
On Tuesday (August 1), Parag was again amidst the massive opinion shift. He was viewed as the ultimate No.4 batter India currently does not possess in the 50-over format. He is also that finisher that some guarantee that India needs. All of that is based on one knock.
The fact, however, remains that Parag is a work in progress. While his 131 against North Zone earlier in the Deodhar Trophy showed his highs, the 13 against South Zone immediately brought him back to reality.
Parag is somewhere in between the highs and lows.
It is that perfect spot where opinions about him rarely matter to him. All that matters is his joy while clobbering the ball miles away from the boundary ropes. Thus far, the tracks here in Puducherry have been quite tricky for the batters, with the inconsistent bounce and turn often taking away Parag’s joy.
The handful crowd at Ground 2 in Puducherry were already content watching some of Chennai Super Kings’ big stars, such as Shivam Dube and Rajvardhan Hangargekar, that watching Parag was almost an afterthought.
But when the all-rounder casually went about his business, the aspiring cricketers at the venue quickly realised. One screamed, “Paaru da (See bro), Riyan Parag sir is batting.”
Parag is 21.
But the applause that he got for every run he scored painted a different picture. That’s really how Parag is at times, the love that he receives from the kids and the fans can be overwhelming. And his game often reciprocates that love.
On the surface, where East Zone could have had a deja-vu moment from their clash against South Zone when they crashed from 133/2 to 157/5, Parag’s start to the innings had a very un-Parag-like start, when he was nudging the ball around without trying to muscle it. It wasn’t until close to the 40th over when Parag actually hit his first boundary.
Parag minimised the dot-ball percentage where others were struggling and then unleashed the athlete in him when he sprinted for the ones and twos, tiring the West fielders, who kept running from one corner to another, only to always end up second-best to the tracer bullet that Parag sent their way.
There weren’t too many people to witness his blazing progress, but those who did nod in unison without even looking at each other. Parag peppered the area with six fours and clobbered five sixes, none better than the crashing straight drive that he hit off Atith Sheth’s bowling.
It wasn’t more about the shot but the sound of it. Even if you were at Ground 3, which is quite some distance from Ground 2, the sound that the blade made would have reached you. Very often, ‘reckless’ is a word that is loosely associated with the youngster. But in a must-win clash, Parag proved that the word doesn’t go hand-in-hand with him.
Parag’s intent, which he later revealed, was to take the game deep till the 40th over and then punch West where it genuinely hurt. If he displayed classical strokes until he reached his half-century, he laced singles and doubles with monstrous strokes. Not just that, at one point, the right-hander also asked for a change in bat, which was later revealed as his ‘slog-bat’.
As the lines from Rajinikanth’s famous recent hit, Petta goes, Riyan Parag vettai aadavae veriyodu suthuraan (Parag was running furiously trying to hunt).
At one point, a century was never in contention, but the acceleration was such that he got there in the 49th over of the innings. While paying his respect to some quality bowling, Parag unleashed a carnage that the West wasn’t prepared for and a knock that the East knew well and truly of.
If Saurabh Tiwary’s words are true, anything short of an Indian debut for the Gen-Z superstar Parag would be quite a disappointment.
