Rajasthan Royals’ head coach Rahul Dravid has backed Riyan Parag to adapt to his new No. 3 position and deliver in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 season.
Parag enjoyed his best-ever IPL campaign while batting at No. 4 last season, scoring 573 runs in 16 matches at an average of 52.09 and a strike rate of 149.22. He was the Royals’ top scorer in IPL 2024 and the third-highest scorer overall.
However, Parag, who was appointed as the Royals’ captain for the first three matches of the season to allow Sanju Samason more time to recover completely, was promoted to No. 3 for the ongoing IPL 2025 campaign. He has managed to score 4 and 25 in his two outings so far.
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Dravid, who had also coached Parag during India’s 2018 Under-19 World Cup-winning campaign, explained the rationale behind the move while labelling the Assam batter as one of the team’s best batters.
“Riyan is one of our best batters, let’s be honest,” Dravid was quoted saying by ESPNCricinfo. “And we want to give him as many balls as we possibly can. Twenty overs is a very short time and the more balls Riyan Parag bats for us, the better it is for us as a team
“But honestly, the move to No. 3 was a positive move to try and give him more time to bat. And we know how destructive a player he is and if he gets more time, then he can score more runs and that can benefit the team. So that was the thinking, but we can always assess that, and we can always see how it’s going. And I think he’s quite comfortable, he’s more than capable of batting at any position,” he added.
Having said that, Dravid also made it clear that keeping the batting order flexible will be the top priority and Parag’s position could also be changed in the coming days if it benefits the team.
“But, of course, we’ll continue to look at, assess, and see how things go. And, yes, we know Riyan has done exceptionally well at No. 4, so this gives us an option,” he said.
Parag’s haul of 573 from last season is the second-highest number of runs ever scored by any middle-order batsman in the IPL. Rishabh Pant managed just six more in the 2018 campaign.
After successive losses at the start of the season, Rajasthan Royals will look to get their campaign on track when they face the Chennai Super Kings at the ACA Stadium in Guwahati on Sunday.
