After primarily playing the finisher's role in his first five seasons, Riyan Parag had a breakout campaign in IPL 2024, excelling at No. 4 and emerging as Rajasthan Royals' leading run-scorer during their playoff run.

This season, Parag has been promoted further to No. 3 as RR aim to maximize the potential of a player head coach Rahul Dravid has called "one of our best batters." He has registered scores of 4 and 25 in RR’s first two games of IPL 2025. On Sunday against Chennai Super Kings, he’ll have one final chance to deliver a big knock on his home ground, as Guwahati hosts its last match of the season. 

"That's the right word to use, that he's promoted," Dravid said. "Look, Riyan is one of our best batters, let's be honest. And we want to give him as many balls as we possibly can. Twenty overs is a very short time and the more balls Riyan Parag bats for us, the better it is for us as a team."

"But honestly, the move to No. 3 was a positive move to try and give him more time to bat. And we know how destructive a player he is and if he gets more time, then he can score more runs and that can benefit the team. So that was the thinking, but we can always assess that and we can always see how it's going. And I think he's quite comfortable, he's more than capable of batting at any position."

In addition to being a key batter, Parag is also filling in as captain for Sanju Samson, who is still recovering from a finger injury. As a result, Samson's role has been limited to batting as an impact substitute, while Parag has taken charge of the team. It has been a tough start, with RR losing their first two games, but head coach Rahul Dravid remains supportive of the 23-year-old.

"I think he's adapted really well," Dravid said. "It's not easy to captain when the team is scoring 280 runs [Sunrisers Hyderabad] on a flat wicket. The first game is probably a tough game to be a captain. But I think the calmness that he showed and the fact that it didn't seem like our team was panicking was really good.

"Even in the game against KKR [Kolkata Knight Riders], his brave decision to bring himself on [with the ball], realising that the wicket was turning, with two left-handers batting, to bowl the fifth over in the powerplay was a brave decision and a correct decision. So I think he's been very impressive. As a captain, it's nice for him to get this opportunity till Sanju is able to field again. And he's sharing his thoughts and his ideas. Very clear. He's very solid in that sense.

"So, yeah, very impressive early days. And it's very nice for us as, again, a team that's looking to develop people and players. Of course, it's unfortunate that Sanju was not able to captain and play for us. But I think in a way it's nice that we were able to give Riyan, our vice-captain, a chance to captain in a few games and give him that exposure and experience as well."