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Former Indian cricketer and commentator Aakash Chopra has opened up on the Rajasthan Royals appointing Riyan Parag as their new captain for the forthcoming IPL 2026 season, which is scheduled to start in March.
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Speaking on his YouTube channel, Chopra asserted that both the Royals and Parag have a hand-in-hand relationship since his debut in IPL way back in 2019. Furthermore, he reckoned that Parag will have a similar story for the Royals like MS Dhoni for CSK, Rohit Sharma for MI and Virat Kohli for RCB.
"Riyan Parag's story is that he has been made the captain. To be very honest, the Rajasthan Royals and Riyan Parag have a hand-in-hand relationship, and it feels that relationship goes beyond, because that story doesn't happen in the IPL at all. It's very rare that if a team gets attached to a player, they don't move at all," Chopra said on his YouTube channel
"You see that with MS Dhoni for CSK, Rohit Sharma for MI and Virat Kohli for RCB. Other than that, you don't remember any story like that where a guy stayed at one place and didn't move anywhere. Riyan Parag is that story for the Rajasthan Royals. Considering the level I am talking about, you can understand how big an investment the Rajasthan Royals have in that player," he added.
Furthermore, he opened up on the reason behind Yashasvi Jaiswal not getting a chance to lead the franchise, adding that he is currently not a captaincy candidate as he didn’t get a chance to lead any domestic side so far.
"What other options were there? Yashasvi Jaiswal's option comes to my mind. Shubman Gill's fan army might come to abuse me, but the truth is that Yashasvi Jaiswal has fallen behind in the race slightly because he is not a captaincy candidate. Yashasvi was ready to leave Mumbai and go to Goa for captaincy. So he might have captaincy aspirations," he observed.
"Where will he captain? Mumbai is not giving him captaincy. He didn't go to Goa. So he might have asked Rajasthan to make him the captain because this is the stage," he concluded.
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