India all-rounder Riyan Parag became the centre of a meme fest on social media on Wednesday after teammate Shubman Gill and Bollywood actress Ananya Panday came together for an advertisement shoot. The memes set the internet on fire shortly after Gill and Ananya shared a post from their respective social media handles about the advertisement.

On Wednesday, audio products manufacturer Beats announced the launch of its new products—the Beats Solo Buds, Beats Solo 4, and Beats Pill—in India. Ananya and Gill were part of the advertisement campaign, and shortly after Beats' announcement, they shared a post on X and Instagram about the product with a picture of their ad shoot.

However, moments after the pictures went online, Parag began to trend on social media.

But, why Riyan Parag?

The Rajasthan Royals star, who made his India debut in a T20I series earlier this summer, had begun trending on social media back in May after a screenshot of his search history on YouTube went viral, which featured two entries - "Ananya Panday hot" and "Sara Ali Khan hot".

Besides being a professional cricketer, the 22-year-old is also a part-time gamer, who occasionally streams his gaming activities online. The act has helped him gain over 65,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel. However, during one of his streaming shows, his YouTube search history was spotted by a user, who immediately singled out the entries on the two Bollywood actresses, and led it to a barrage of tweets criticising and mocking the cricketer.

Riyan Parag gears up for Duleep Trophy

Earlier this year, Parag scripted a fabulous run in IPL 2024, where he scored 567 runs in 13 innings at a strike rate of 151.60, to emerge as the highest run-getter for Rajasthan Royals and most among uncapped players. The successful campaign helped him earn a maiden India call-up in the tour of Zimbabwe and later for the Sri Lanka series as well, where he even made his ODI debut.

The all-rounder is now gearing up for the Duleep Trophy, which begins on Thursday. The tournament will mark the beginning of the red-ball season in India, and will help the BCCI selection committee to pick the India Test squad for the upcoming two-match series against Bangladesh.

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