New Delhi: India skipper Rohit Sharma has criticised the Impact Player rule in the Indian Premier League (IPL) saying that it holds back the development of allrounders in Indian cricket. The rule was implemented in the IPL from the 2023 season which allows teams to bring in a 12th player at any point in a match to replace a player from the starting eleven after the toss. Rohit is the first high-profile Indian player to be critical of the rule.
Ever since its implementation, there has been mixed feedback for it. Some find that it increases the entertainment factor while some have been critical of it taking the allrounders into consideration. Rohit was invited as a guest to the podcast show, Club Praire Fire, co-hosted by Australia great Adam Gilchrist and ex-England cricketer Michael Vaughan and the opener didn’t shy away from having his take on the rule.
“I generally feel that it is going to hold back (growth of allrounders) because eventually cricket is played by 11 players, not 12 players. 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,” Rohit said.
He named a few allrounders who according to him are not being able to hone themselves in the bowling department. “If you genuinely look at the 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 (Team India) is not a good thing.”
Rohit’s comments come two weeks before the Indian selection committee will finalise the provisional 15-men squad for the T20 World Cup 2024 going to be held in the USA and the West Indies from June 1. There has been a lot of gossip around the role of openers, top-order, middle-order, all-rounders and even the pacers who will make the cut and the Indian skipper has firmly established a bottom line for all the “fake news”.
While talking about himself and Virat Kohli over who is going to open at the World Cup, he said, “We haven’t met so far, we haven’t decided who’ll open at the World Cup.” He further stressed that “In today’s age, until and unless you don’t hear from me, Rahul bhai or Ajit bhai, everything else is fake.”
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