Sunday night’s IPL finale between the Gujarat Titans and Rajasthan Royals at Ahmedabad saw the hosts get off to a dominating start against their pink-jersey clad rivals.

Captain Pandya leads GT’s bowling charge

Hardik Pandya, leading the Titans to their maiden finals appearance in their first-ever season, bowled a fabulous spell of 4-0-17-3 to derail the Royals’ batting momentum. He was ably assisted by all the other Gujarat bowlers, which allowed them to restrict Rajasthan to a sub-par first-innings score of 130/9.

Rajasthan could have shown a little more intent with the bat, as none of their batters- barring the top-3- could score runs at a decent strike rate. In fact, ones the likes of Jos Buttler, Sanju Samson, and Shimron Hetmyer went back into the pavilion, the game looked almost as good as a sad, foregone conclusion for the Royals.

And that’s saying quite a lot, since RR did have some promising lower-order batters in their playing XI for the match. While Ravichandran Ashwin- who looked in good batting rhythm all through this season- could only muster 6 runs off 9 balls, the bigger disappointment for them tonight was Riyan Parag.

The 20-year-old Assam batter has been a polarizing subject of discussion among cricket fans. There’s no doubt that Parag has a lot of potential to play strong finishing innings; but his inconsistency has been a major gripe among fans. And as it turned out, in the all-important final game of the season, Parag couldn’t quite live up to the billing.

Fans criticised Riyan Parag for playing slow

Batting alongside Obed McCoy in the closing overs of the match, Parag tried to hog the strike himself as much as possible. But he couldn’t score too many boundaries of the balls that he faced. In the final over, in a desperate attempt to get some quick runs on the board, Parag tried to run a double and, in the process, ran out McCoy.

Two balls later, Parag himself got cleaned over by a brilliant yorker from Mohammed Shami. He finished with a run-a-ball 15 in RR’s underwhelming first-innings score. Fans were not at all pleased by Parag’s contribution to Rajasthan’s innings, and many of them made their frustration known on social media. Here are some of the reactions:

Watch: Virat Kohli wins fans’ hearts as he denies taking runs on overthrow

Trent Boult + Obed McCoy – 19(12) with 2 sixes

Riyan Parag – 15(15) with one four

I still don't know his role in the team

— tee (@techsaturation) May 29, 2022

Riyan Parag didn’t take a single of the 1st bowl of shami and also hits a six…but honestly im still wondering what is riyan specialised in…??? Feel obed mccoy was more capable of hitting sixes than Riyan…Riyan 15ball 15runs n then bowled by shami 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️ @rajasthanroyals

— Samip Rajguru (@samiprajguru) May 29, 2022

Dhoni’s style & attitude suits only legendary players like Dhoni.

It doesn’t suit Riyan Parag kind of players. He has the ego of a king.

No wonder there are so many trolls on him! #riyanparag #RR

— idlebrain jeevi (@idlebrainjeevi) May 29, 2022