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The newly introduced Impact Player rule in the Indian Premier League (IPL) has teams in as much of a fix as fans and viewers of the game.
The rule, which effectively turns the match into a 12-a-side affair by allowing teams to substitute a member of the first playing XI with a player who starts on the bench, is yet to make an impact.
At the end of the first round of matches, nine teams have used the provision, barring Royal Challengers Bangalore, which hammered Mumbai Indians by eight wickets on Sunday.
During the game, Jason Behrendorff became the first overseas Impact Player when the left-arm pacer came on in place of Suryakumar Yadav. Behrendorff opened the bowling for Mumbai and conceded just five runs in the first over. But the curse of the Impact Player caught up with the Australian as he eventually went for 37 runs in his three overs without picking a wicket.
Earlier on Sunday, another pacer, who was brought on as Impact Player in place of a specialist batter, met a similar fate, albeit with less disastrous consequences. Rajasthan Royals brought in pacer Navdeep Saini and sent half-centurion Yashasvi Jaiswal out 11 overs into Sunrisers Hyderabad’s chase. Saini was flayed for 34 runs in two overs, which included a 23-run 20th over. However, the right-arm pacer’s profligacy didn’t have much of a bearing on the outcome of the game as the Royals crushed Sunrisers by 72 runs.
Two other pacers have been used as Impact Players in the tournament so far. Chennai Super Kings’ Tushar Deshpande became the first Impact Player in the IPL when he replaced Ambati Rayudu against Gujarat Titans. Deshpande went for 51 runs in 3.2 overs and picked the lone wicket of Shubman Gill. The other pacer is Rishi Dhawan of Punjab Kings, who was smashed for 15 runs in the solitary over he bowled after substituting Bhanuka Rajapaksa against Kolkata Knight Riders.
The numbers are telling. The four pacers who have been used as Impact Players so far have conceded 137 runs in 9.2 overs at an economy rate of 14.67 and picked just one wicket between them. The sample size, however, is too small to draw definitive conclusions.
Meanwhile, the batters have fared better statistically but haven’t quite had the desired ‘impact’. A case in point is Abdul Samad (replacing Fazalhaq Farooqi), who struck a run-a-ball 32 in Sunrisers Hyderabad’s 204-run chase against Rajasthan. Coming in with his team stuttering at 48 for five, Samad’s knock prevented some damage to Hyderabad’s Net Run Rate but never showed the promise of taking it anywhere close to the target. Similarly, Venkatesh Iyer’s (replacing Varun Chakravarthy) 28-ball 34 lacked the firepower to carry Kolkata over the line against Punjab after the former lost two early wickets. Delhi’s gamble on bowling all-rounder Aman Khan (replacing Khaleel Ahmed), who was brought in after his team had bowled 19 overs and scored four runs off five balls with the bat, was dead on arrival.
Sai Sudharsan, who replaced the injured Kane Williamson as Impact Player, struck a sedate but valuable 17-ball 22 against CSK, playing second fiddle to Shubman Gill in a 53-run partnership.
The most impactful of Impact Players thus far, arguably, was Krishnappa Gowtham. Brought in place of Ayush Badoni, who had just departed for a seven-ball 18, Gowtham hit the last ball of Lucknow Super Giants’ innings for a six and came back to bowl an economical spell of 0-23 in four overs.
A combined strike rate of 118.07 is what the five Impact Players who have had a go with the bat so far have managed and it would be a stretch to call it impactful. Exclude Gowtham’s one-ball six and it dips further to 112.19.
Both specialist bowlers and batters have largely failed to make a mark as Impact Players. Ahead of the tournament, the criticism mounted against the Impact Player rule revolved around the provision negating the value of all-rounders. But now that all the teams have had a shot at the innovation, the opposite has emerged as true, with all-rounder Gowtham’s performance standing tall above the rest.
It’s still early days in the evolution of the Impact Player rule and how teams adapt to it, but all-rounders could play a more pivotal role than previously thought in the coming weeks.
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