By Rohit Sharma has expressed his lack of enthusiasm for the ‘Impact Player’ rule, which was introduced in the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament of 2022-23 and is now part of the IPL. During a recent episode of the Club Prairie Fire Podcast, the India captain criticized the rule, particularly its impact on the development of all-rounders.
“I generally feel that it is going to hold back [allrounders] because eventually cricket is played by 11 players, not 12 players,” Rohit remarked on the podcast, which also featured Adam Gilchrist and Michael Vaughan. “I’m not a big fan of impact player. You are taking out so much from the game just to make it little entertaining for the people around. But if you look [at] genuinely just cricketing aspect of it… I can give you so many examples – guys like Washington Sundar, Shivam Dube are not getting to bowl, which for us [India team] is not a good thing.”
Rohit’s comments come ahead of the T20 World Cup, with India facing a challenge in balancing their squad as their top-order batters do not offer any bowling options. Rohit is relying on Hardik Pandya to regain form as the seam-bowling all-rounder, while Ravindra Jadeja fills the spin-bowling all-rounder role.
Rohit finally Responds on Impact Rule
India recently played Dube in their last T20I series before the IPL, where the all-rounder claimed two wickets from his seven overs and scored 124 runs at a strike rate of 158.97. However, the ‘Impact Substitute’ rule in the IPL has limited his bowling opportunities. Similarly, Washington Sundar has only bowled three overs in six games for Sunrisers Hyderabad.
This rule could affect Dube’s selection for the squad, despite his excellent spin-hitting skills, which are needed in the middle-order on the slower surfaces of the Caribbean. Regarding the future of the IPL with this rule, Rohit did not offer any clear solutions.
“I don’t know what you can do about it, but I’m not a fan of it [the rule] honestly speaking,” he said. “Because there’s obviously 12 players for you to select from and whoever that impact player is, you can see how the game is going and change it later depending on what you need, what pitch is behaving.
“If you bat well, if you don’t lose wickets, you can add another bowler so it gives you an option of having six or seven bowlers. You don’t need that extra batter because a lot of the teams actually upfront are batting well, and then you hardly see Nos. 7 or 8 coming to bat.”
