Riyan Parag was criticised and ridiculed by social media users for his search on YouTube. A few, however, sympathised with him as well.
By: Shubham Ghosh
THE cricketer had a very successful mission in the just concluded Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 with the bat. But Riyan Parag, who played for Rajasthan Royals who came third in the tournament after champions Kolkata Knight Riders and runners-up Sunrisers Hyderabad, came under the scanner for something not related to the game.
The 22-year-old’s name started trending on social media X on Tuesday (28) after a screenshot of his search history on YouTube went viral.
Social media users swiftly recognised that the list had two entries — “Ananya Panday hot” and “Sara Ali Khan hot”.
Ananya and Sara Ali are two frontline actresses of Bollywood, India’s Hindi film industry.
Read: KKR tweet saluting opponents Hyderabad after winning IPL trophy; called ‘classy’
Soon, Parag, who is also a part-time gamer and streams his gaming activities on social media, was bombarded with a barrage of critical and ridiculing tweets.
https://x.com/Incognito_qfs/status/1795127162581790832
https://x.com/Sharma_gril1/status/1795396893922738673
https://x.com/vannumeena0/status/1795254603103314281
https://x.com/kandapohaa/status/1795441761692897337
However, there were also some who sympathised with the batter and said he was only a human.
https://x.com/223Chetry17096/status/1795133598992892121
Parag, who has more than 65,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel, had a memorable IPL this year in which he scored 573 runs in 15 outings with four fifties and strike rate of nearly 150.
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His runs also saw him eclipsing Indian wicket-keeper-batter Rishabh Pant’s record of 547 runs at No.4 position in the IPL which he made in 2018.
The player, who was born in Guwahati in the north-eastern state of Assam, was doubtful about his position for Rajasthan in IPL this year but eventually got to bat at the top position throughout the series.
Parag’s failure to get a national call for the T20 World Cup did not go down well with the supporters but he said he was not disappointed and took a subtle dig at the selectors remarking that he was not even in contention to play in the IPL till last year.