{"id":156267,"date":"2026-04-18T07:57:51","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T13:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/?p=156267"},"modified":"2026-04-18T07:57:51","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T13:27:51","slug":"ipl-2026-kkr-vs-rr-sangakkara-backs-captain-riyan-parag-despite-slow-start-with-bat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/?p=156267","title":{"rendered":"IPL 2026, KKR vs RR: Sangakkara backs captain Riyan Parag despite slow start with bat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"content-body-70877654\" itemprop=\"articleBody\">Rajasthan Royals (RR), third in the Indian Premier League 2026 standings, looks like it has its house in order. For the most part.<\/p>\n<p>It did go down heavily against the Sunrisers Hyderabad in its previous fixture, but skipper Riyan Parag did well to label the defeat as a mere \u2018blip\u2019 and move on. There was nothing to worry about, he said.<\/p>\n<p>Ironically, it could be Parag\u2019s lowly returns, after all, that may have the Royals a tad stressed. In five outings, Parag hasn\u2019t been able to cross 50 runs. His batting average reads 12.25, and he has been taking all of nine balls on average to lose his wicket.<\/p>\n<p><b>KKR vs RR PREVIEW | <a href=\"https:\/\/sportstar.thehindu.com\/cricket\/ipl\/kolkata-knight-riders-vs-rajasthan-royals-ipl-2026-kkr-v-rr-match-preview-team-news\/article70877601.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Struggling Kolkata Knight Riders looks for foothold against high-flying Rajasthan Royals<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n<p>However, Kumar Sangakkara, RR\u2019s head coach and director of cricket, didn\u2019t seem too worried. \u201cWhen I am watching Riyan, he\u2019s hitting the ball off the middle. I\u2019ve been through this myself as a cricketer. There are some days when you\u2019re batting well, you\u2019re just not getting the runs. Especially in the middle order in T20s, you\u2019re not looking at long innings. You\u2019re looking at impact,\u201d he said on Saturday ahead of a game against Kolkata Knight Riders here.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s difficult to get through an RR presser these days without at least one mention of the sensational Vaibhav Sooryavanshi. Naturally, Sangakkara was asked to react to Sooryavanshi\u2019s golden duck against SRH after scoring 200 runs in the other four games at a strike rate of 266.66.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re allowed to score runs; you\u2019re allowed to fail. It\u2019s part and parcel of cricket. Vaibhav is such an exciting young player. He reads the game really well. He anticipates situations. But the nature of opening batting in T20 cricket, especially now the way the game\u2019s moving, is very much all-out attack. So, sometimes, for a batter like that, less said, the better.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"publish-time\" id=\"end-of-article\">Published on Apr 18, 2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/sportstar.thehindu.com\/cricket\/ipl\/ipl-2026-kkr-vs-rr-kumar-sangakkara-backs-captain-riyan-parag-despite-slow-start-batting-stats-runs\/article70877654.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rajasthan Royals (RR), third in the Indian Premier League 2026 standings, looks like it has its house in order. For the most part. It did go down heavily against the Sunrisers Hyderabad in its previous fixture, but skipper Riyan Parag did well to label the defeat as a mere \u2018blip\u2019 and move on. There was&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":156268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-156267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/PTI04_13_2026_000532B.jpg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgnRh4-EEr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=156267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/156268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=156267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=156267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=156267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}