Former India player turned veteran commentator Aakash Chopra has said that the Rajasthan Royals (RR) are overdependent on their top order ahead of their match against the Punjab Kings (PBKS). While claiming that Riyan Parag is a good player, he also stated that the RR captain is out of form. RR will play against PBKS in New Chandigarh on Tuesday, April 28. They have 10 points from 8 games and are placed fourth on the points table as well.
In a video shared on his YouTube channel, ‘Aakash Chopra,’ he said, “The overreliance on the top three is one of your problems. Runs haven’t been scored at Nos. 4, 5, and 6. Riyan Parag has scored 88 runs in eight matches. He will have to walk the talk. We say we are good, he is a good player, but he doesn’t have form. So you will have to accept that the form isn’t good. If Nos. 4, 5, and 6 don’t score the runs, for how long will the top three keep you relevant?”
“In the last match as well, the runs got chased. You should have reached close to 250, and you were left 25 runs behind. So you understand that there is a middle-order problem, as Vaibhav Suryavanshi scored a hundred, and then the last four overs. For a variety of reasons, their batting and the Gujarat Titans’ batting look similar,” he again added.
However, Aakash Chopra also shared that the IPL 2026 match between the Punjab Kings and the Rajasthan Royals would be a battle between their swashbuckling opening pairs as well.
“It’s a battle between the openers on both sides. Prabhsimran Singh and Priyansh Arya are on one side, and Yashasvi Jaiswal and Vaibhav Suryananshi are on the other side. So it’s going to be a good game of cricket. It will be bat vs bat at the start,” he said.
“Rajasthan will try to stop Punjab somehow, which looks almost impossible. Let’s see if there is any team that can stop Punjab’s winning run. I am not sure whether even Rajasthan can do that job. I am not 100 percent certain,” Aakash Chopra concluded.
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