Riyan Parag

Riyan Parag idolises MS Dhoni, his picture of him with the former Indian skipper as a child and now as an opponent in the IPL is a testament to the fact that the kid from Guwahati made giant strides in the cricketing arena, all whilst being in his teens. 

He was seen in a sublime touch in IPL 2024 scoring 573 runs in 16 matches at an average of 52.09 for Rajasthan Royals. He finished third in the orange cap list.

Riyan Parag Along the Years 

Riyan Parag Records 

• Youngest Indian player to score a fifty in the IPL. 

Riyan Parag Career

Riyan Parag made his debut for Assam in the Ranji Trophy in 2017 at the age of 16. After a very good performance in domestic cricket, he was included in the team for the Indian Under-19 World Cup in 2018. Being a part of the Under-19 World Cup winning team, he soon got the opportunity to make his IPL debut. 

Riyan Parag has been associated with Rajasthan Royals since 2018 and is improving his yearly performance.

Riyan Parag Domestic Career

At age 16, Riyan Parag made his first-class debut for Assam in the 2017–18 Ranji Trophy on 17 November 2017. Before his FC debut, Parag already had a crack at the competitive level when he made his Twenty20 debut for Assam in the 2016–17 Inter-State Twenty-20 Tournament on 29 January 2017. His impressive performances in the domestic setup for Assam were quickly noticed and he was drafted into the Under-19 World Cup squad that eventually won the trophy.

Another successful overseas outing preceded the World Cup success, this time in the red-ball format of the game as the Indian Colts demolished their English counterparts in a 2-Test series. Only 15 then, Parag played his part in the monumental success, stroking three half-centuries, including fifties in both innings of the first unofficial Test.

He became a player of the series in the 2023-24 Deodhar Trophy. He became the highest run-getter and hit most sixes in the 2023-24 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy.

Riyan Parag IPL Career

After some impressive performances in the domestic circuit, the talented right-hand batsman was snaffled up by Rajasthan Royals in the 2018 auctions at his base price of Rs. 20 lakh. In the next season, Parag hit his maiden fifty and became the youngest player in the IPL to hit a fifty, leaving behind Sanju Samson and Prithvi Shaw. He played 7 matches in his rookie season scoring 160 runs. 

After performing well in his first season, nothing special was seen in return for Riyan Parag for the next several IPL seasons. Still, despite this, Rajasthan Royals did not lose hope in Riyan Parag and kept on retaining him. He wasn’t even able to cross 100 run marks in three seasons from 2019 to 2023. 

Riyan Parag scored 573 runs for Rajasthan Royals in IPL 2024 which was the most in the team. He finished third in the orange cap list.

Riyan Parag Under 19 career

Before playing the Under-19 World Cup in 2018, Riyan Parag was included in the Indian Under-19 team in 2017 for two youth test matches against England.

At the end of the Test series, Riyan Parag was the second-highest run scorer for India.

Riyan was also included in the India A team for the India Under-19 Challenger Trophy in 2017 and Riyan impressed everyone by scoring the most runs in the tournament.

Due to his excellent form and performance, he was also included in the Indian team for the Under-19 Cricket World Cup 2018.

Before the start of the tournament, Parag got injured in the finger of his left hand in the warm-up match, after which he had to sit out of the opening matches of the tournament.

Riyan Parag played only two matches in the Under-19 World Cup 2018 and scored only 5 runs, In bowling, Riyan Parag took two wickets in the semi-final match against Pakistan.

Riyan Parag Family Background

Riyan Parag hails from a sports family background as his father Parag Das is a former Assam Ranji cricket player and his mother Mithoo Baruaah is a national record-holder swimmer. He started playing cricket at a very young age and was part of the Assam Under-16 cricket team when he was 12.

Many years ago, his father and Dhoni featured in Railways' tournaments together in Kharagpur and Guwahati. They even finished top of the run-charts for their department in the Inter-Railways competitions in Nagpur in 2004, just before his India debut. They have also played against each other in the Ranji Trophy when Dhoni turned up for Bihar several years ago. On Parag's IPL debut, Dhoni was keeping wicket and captaining the opposition.