Assam cricketer Riyan Parag was among the 11 players to be retained by Rajasthan Royals for the next season of the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Apart from Parag, the other players to have been retained by the Royals are Steve Smith, Sanju Samson, Jofra Archer, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler, Shashank Singh, Shreyas Gopal, Mahipal Lomoror, Varun Aaron, and Manan Vohra.
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Parag was bought by the Royals at his base price of Rs 20 lakh in the last auction and he played seven IPL matches in his debut season for the Royals and made a decent enough contribution.
His first match was against Chennai Super Kings (CSK), in which he scored a breezy 16 of 14 balls before being caught by MS Dhoni of Shardul Thakur’s bowling.
His 50 in 49 balls (for a losing cause) against Delhi Capitals (DC) was his best show with the bat.
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With this half-century to his name, Parag became the youngest player in IPL history to score a fifty.
Apart from the lone 50, Parag also scored 43 runs (in just 29 balls) and shared a 70-run partnership with skipper Steve Smith in a match against the Mumbai Indians.
This gutsy inning earned him a lot of fans from across the cricketing world.
He also scored a brilliant 47 in 31 balls against the Kolkata Knight Riders, eventually handing his team a 3-wicket victory over the Dinesh Karthik-led side.
Parag scored 160 runs in total with an average of 32 and a strike-rate of 126.98.
He also bowled 14 overs and claimed 2 wickets by giving away 121 runs at an economy rate of 8.64. His best bowling performance was 1/10.
Parag’s debut season shall be remembered for a few other things as well like his unique style of celebrating a wicket by dancing ‘Bihu’.
The Royals also bought batsman Robin Uthappa, after he was released by the Kolkata Knight Riders, for Rs 3 crore in the IPL auction on Thursday.
His base price was Rs 1.5 crore.
The Royals also roped in Under-19 World Cup players Yashasvi Jaiswal and Kartik Tyagi.
The Royals also traded Ankit Rajpoot, Mayank Markande, and Rahul Tewatia.