The Rajasthan Royals might be doing reasonably well in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 season, but former India batter Sanjay Manjrekar still isn’t sold on the idea of Riyan Parag leading the franchise. The right-handed batter, 24, hasn’t set the tournament ablaze with his own performances, and it took Parag ten matches to come up with his first half-century in the 19th edition of the T20 tournament. To make matters worse, Parag found himself at the centre of a huge controversy after he was caught on camera vaping inside the dressing room. For this offence, the youngster was fined 25 per cent of his match fees.
Parag, who joined the Royals in 2019, has been with the franchise for seven years but has failed to string together consistent performances. He averages 25.70 with the bat and has only eight half-centuries to his name. Parag’s first tryst with captaincy in the IPL came last year, when he led the franchise in some matches in Sanju Samson’s absence. Ahead of the IPL 2026 season, Samson left the Royals to join the Chennai Super Kings (CSK), and the Royals management interviewed 4-5 players before choosing Parag as the eventual captain.
However, the below-par returns with the bat led Manjrekar to say that Parag’s elevation as captain does not make any cricketing sense, and that the batter should feel extremely lucky to receive such a reward.
“He is not one of your typical Indian players. He’s fit and just the way he walks around and everything struts around. But I would say, after the kind of performances I’ve seen over the years. It is something that I find a little strange that the Rajasthan Royals have backed him so much,” Manjrekar said on Sportstar’s Insight Edge podcast.
“I mean, Sanju Samson captained them for a few years, and then he was removed, and Riyan Parag took over. I don’t know what happened there. But I don’t think from a cricketing point of view, it makes any sense at all. It’s a bit harsh to say this, but he’s just got too much as a reward. Having not really worked hard for those rewards. So it’s a very interesting case pertaining to the Rajasthan Royals,” he added.
‘Self-confidence’
However, Manjrekar was also quick to point out that Parag has unbelievable self-confidence, and that is his biggest strength. The former Indian batter then said that sometimes the arrogance tends to get the better of the youngster.
“What catches the eye about Riyan Parag is his unbelievable self-confidence. Even when he was not delivering, if you saw him in the field, the kind of stuff that he did. It was just almost arrogance for somebody who was struggling to, you know, fit in or deliver. So he tells me about someone who has this confidence, and it seems genuine. It doesn’t seem to be a put-on,” said Manjrekar.
“So when I see his overall career as well. You would seem he would have played numerous innings of 14 or 15 runs, where he would come in and hit a couple of cracking shots, and you would be blown away. And then the next body’s playing the same shot and getting out. That is his MO. That is how Riyan Parag generally plays: sensational shots, but I think somewhere the overconfidence, or whatever, just gets him to keep trying to play those shots. And because he mishits so many and gets out, he’s obviously not focusing on every attacking shot he plays. So he’s an interesting character. That is the captain, after all; that is something that I’ve never understood with the Rajasthan Royals,” he added.
Speaking of Parag, he notched up a knock of 90 in the previous match against the Delhi Capitals, but the innings went in vain as the Delhi Capitals chased down the target of 226. After the knock, Parag was quizzed about his own performances in the tournament so far, and the Royals skipper said that he doesn’t need to prove anything to anyone.
In the ten matches Parag has played in the 2026 season so far, Parag has scored 207 runs at an average of 23. The Royals, who are fourth in the points table, will next face the Gujarat Titans on Saturday, May 9.