With Samson having left them for Chennai Super Kings (CSK), RR are now without their most capped player. Parag has called Samson “irreplacable”, but felt RR were nonetheless well placed for a strong season if they could avoid the missed opportunities in key moments that defined their 2025 season, when a string of narrow defeats led them to a ninth-place finish.
“We can only try to look for players with the same skills [like Samson] and someone who can fill the hole left by him in the batting order,” Parag said in Jaipur. “Just like you cannot replace Virat Kohli or Rohit Sharma in any XI, Samson is irreplaceable.
“But will we plan something new? That’s what we’ve been discussing in the build-up. If you see last season, we lost five or six close games, in fact a couple of games were last-ball defeats. This season, if those few games go in our favour, then we won’t be asked about our issues any longer.
“In any 40-over game, there will be a few moments where you have to make right decisions and that’s what I’ll focus on – like who will bat where, or what to do at the toss – and if we do that well, then this year will be a good one.”
“The game has changed since 2008, so having Jadeja back in RR colours doesn’t give us an advantage from that particular perspective [of him having played for the team before],” Parag said. “But the main advantage of having someone like Jadeja is that he has played all the seasons, and that experience he brings will be very useful as we try to win those small moments. He is the most experienced IPL player in our squad now.
“Jadeja had a superb economy [rate] in Chennai all these years and Jaipur and Guwahati are wickets that are slow and sticky respectively. And we also have Bishnoi.
“The combination of Bishnoi and Jadeja makes us world-class, top class. I don’t think better combinations are possible than having both of these spinners start for us. The two of them bowling together can help us win from any situation.”
“As a captain, I will tell him not to do many press conferences, not interact with the media much, just enjoy,” Parag said. “[I request the media], don’t call his manager to talk to him. Let him play his cricket.
“This year, there will be hype and pressure naturally, but as a captain, I will tell him to let Yashasvi Jaiswal take the pressure. Jaiswal is more than capable to handle that. For Vaibhav, the role will be just to go, hit, and not to worry.”
Reflecting on his own journey to the captaincy – a significant step for a man still only 24 – Parag said he “appreciated” the difficult years when he was “abused and trolled”, crediting those experiences for the version he is today.
“It has been a journey of lots of ups and downs, maybe more downs than ups,” Parag said. ” I think I have seen it all as a teenager. Whatever a teenager can go through with, I think I have gone through that. But I am really proud of myself that I got out of it. Really thankful to Rajasthan that they backed me. They understood the cricketer that I was.”
“When you have allrounders that allow you ‘X’ amount of overs, then it allows you to change your line-up as well, and that advantage is huge. It [having the number of allrounders RR do] will give us an advantage in terms of getting those initial things right.
“But most importantly, it will come down to those big moments. IPL games are won in big moments with small decisions taken right. And execution has to be at the right level. And that’s what we are aiming to do.”
On the decision to appoint Parag, Sangakkara stressed that it went beyond sentiment around a homegrown player.
“Riyan has seen a lot, gone through a lot,” Sangakkara said. “And the most striking thing for me was how reflective and mature he’s become. Riyan Parag, the cricketer, I have always admired. And when we wanted to select a captain, it was important for us to explore all options.
“We had a short list of candidates and a very strict interview process. The questions were hard and involved two or three conversations. At the end, it became very apparent that the right person to lead Royals was Riyan.
“And the most important thing is that the whole franchise, everybody involved in that process, the team, the coaches and everyone else understands and backs a 100% that the right decision was made.”
Sreshth Shah is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo. @sreshthx