Riyan Parag slammed left, right, and centre; his talent labelled a waste

Former India cricketer Sunil Gavaskar bashed Rajasthan Royals batter Riyan Parag for his outrageous shot selection last night against Sunrisers Hyderabad.

The Royals were taking on the Sunrisers yesterday for IPL 2024's Qualifier 2 match at the MA Chidambaram stadium in Chennai. While Rajasthan came off from a victory against an in-form RCB team in the Eliminator stage, Hyderabad arrived after a loss against KKR in the 1st Qualifier. The match was evenly set for both the teams with the winner having it all.

Eventually, it was the second-best team from the IPL 2024 points table - SRH, who came out on top and denied Rajasthan's entry to their 2nd final in 3 years. Sanju Samson's side was pretty much in the game in both halves but a poor bowling performance towards the end of 1st innings and an equally poor batting performance towards the end of 2nd innings proved to be the difference.

Some of the players' shot selection was highly questionable with Riyan Parag becoming a prime example of what lack of patience does.

How did Riyan Parag get out against Hyderabad?

Riyan Parag, who is the league's 3rd highest run-scorer after Virat Kohli and Ruturaj Gaikwad, had a great platform to deliver a big knock in a high-stakes game. The youngster could not have asked for more from the one above as the foundation was perfectly laid for him to come up with his best-ever batting display and see his team through to the finals.

However, it was the lack of patience and wildness to smash a huge six to release some pressure, which got Riyan Parag out. He had to ensure that he stitched a solid partnership with Dhruv Jurel and steady Rajasthan's ship. The situation was tense in the middle as Yashasvi Jaiswal and Sanju Samson both were out in quick succession.

Riyan Parag was just playing the 10th ball of his innings and he had scored 6 runs at that time. There was a bit of pressure on him due to the dot balls and he thought that the 12th over bowled by Shahbaz Ahmed could be a good opportunity to ease up. So he took his chance in the very first ball.

Parag had made no timing, his body wasn't aligned either when he decided to go for a baseball batter swing against a short ball. The ball went straight up and fell in the hands of Abhishek Sharma. With that, Riyan Parag departed for 6 runs and RR were restricted to 139 with Pat Cummins' Hyderabad winning by 36 runs.

What did Sunil Gavaskar say about Parag's shot selection?

Sunil Gavaskar, who was present at the commentary box when Riyan Parag got out, bashed the latter for his temperament in a high-octane game. Gavaskar slammed Parag by saying that talent alone isn't enough to become successful, one needs a solid mindset as well that they can make up for the dot balls.

"Seriously, seriously? What's the use of all the talent if you're not going to think. What kind of shot is that? Seriously. So much talent… if you don't have the temperament, it's not going to work. So what if you had a few dot balls? You can make up for that." - Sunil Gavaskar said during commentary.