‘I genuinely feel it is going to hold back the development of all-rounders’ – Rohit Sharma concedes not being fan of Impact Player rule

Rohit Sharma. (Photo Source: BCCI/IPL)

For the unversed, the Impact Player rule essentially allows teams to bring in a 12th player at any given juncture of time, which has to be one amongst the five named at the toss to permanently replace a player previously named in the Playing XI for the remainder of the match. 

The Impact Player rule, which came into being in IPL 2023, has worked wonders for most teams, however, reducing the usage of all-rounders.

Speaking on the Club Prairie Fire Podcast co-hosted by his former skipper during his initial years at the Deccan Chargers, Adam Gilchrist, former English captain Michael Vaughan, The Prof, and Ollie, the current Indian and former Mumbai Indians skipper, Rohit Sharma, felt that the Impact Player rule would end up doing more harm than good only for the sake of augmented amusement for viewers and spectators alike, especially for all-rounders like Washington Sundar and Shivam Dube. He voiced that the aforementioned cricketers not getting opportunities to bowl would definitely not be wanted by the Indian team as far as their cricketing endeavours are concerned. 

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“I genuinely feel it is going to hold back the development of all-rounders, because eventually cricket is played by 11 players, not 12. So, I am not a big fan of the Impact Player rule because you are taking out so much from the game just to make it a little more entertaining for the people around. But just the cricketing aspect of it, I feel guys like Washington Sundar and Shivam Dube are not getting to bowl, which is not a good thing for us (India). Not sure what you can do about it, but I am not a fan of it,” said Rohit.

That’s how T20 cricket should be played these days: Rohit 

Further, Rohit went on to defend the bowlers who have been getting belted all around the park of late, stating that rather than bad bowling, it’s just that the frame of mind of the batters is such that they come out with a nothing-to-lose attitude. He pointed out that nowadays, batters coming out at No. 6 and 7 hardly get to face any deliveries, which unreservedly puts the onus on the top-4 batters to go big right from the outset.

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“It’s not bad bowling. It’s just batters are coming out with a free mindset and smacking it all over the park. They are not worried about getting out, and that’s how T20 cricket should be played these days. You’ve got 7-8 batters now and most of the time you realize that your No. 6 and 7 bat only 5-7 balls, so the top-four need to just go out there and play freely,” added the 36-year-old.