Rohit Sharma, captain of the Indian men's cricket team and a former skipper of the Mumbai Indians (MI) franchise, a team he continues to play for in the Indian Premier League (IPL), has said that he is not a fan of the Impact Player rule in the IPL. He argued that the rule stops the development of all-rounders in the Indian cricket circles. Notably, Rohit is the first big name among the high-profile cricketers of India to openly criticise the Impact Player rule which has been in place in IPL 2023.
The Impact Player rule essenatially allows teams to bring in a 12th player in their Playing 11 any time after the toss. The new player can come in place of any other in the team. However, once he has been announced as a substitute, the team no longer bring the player he has replaced back in the side.
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'You are taking out so much from the game just for entertainment': Rohit Sharma
Rohit Sharma did not seem to be happy with the fact that the entertainment quotient was being prioritised over cricketing rationale.
"I generally feel that it is going to hold back [development of allrounders] because eventually cricket is played by 11 players, not 12 players," Rohit said on the Club Prairie Podcast featuring former Australian wicketkeeper-batter Adam Gilchrist and ex-England captain Michael Vaughan.
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"I'm not a big fan of impact player. You are taking out so much from the game just to make it little entertainment 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," he said.
Notably, the Indian selectors are set to submit and finalise a 15-member squad for the T20 World Cup to be played in the Carribean and USA from June 1.