Fielding coach for Lucknow Super Giants, Jonty Rhodes, who termed himself not a "big fan of the Impact Player" rule of the Indian Premier League. It kills, he said, the role of an allrounder.
Rhodes' criticism is support for illustrious players like Rohit Sharma who feel that the rule encourages neither batsman nor bowler to work on the other facet of the game and results in bloated scores. On the other hand, Ravichandran Ashwin believes this rule brings much-needed strategy into the game.
"I am very much by the right use of the Impact player rule since players are nearly playing with freedom; I'm only worried about the role of an all-rounder. Its simple job but it's a vital one playing in cricket, and you need that for Test cricket, 50 over, and all other T20s too.".
"So, I am not a massive fan of that impact player, and maybe I'm just not smart enough to work out when the right strategy to use the player is. But again, it's not my decision when to send a player in, so I'm not losing sleep about it. Always up for change, and to try things to adapt the game and make it more exciting and enjoyable. And I think it certainly did that, big scores were put on the board in last season. But I'm still really concerned about the role of the all-rounder, the importance of the role of the all-rounder in T20 cricket and the Impact Player rule is certainly killing it," Rhodes told IANS.
The Impact Player rule in IPL 2023 presents an opportunity for a franchise to utilize 12 players instead of the earlier 11. A franchise could replace any player, whether a bowler or a batter, with another player at any point in the game in order to effectively make use of the services of an additional player.
Rhodes also is of the view that RTM or Right to Match does not bother him, but again, it does depend upon how many players BCCI lets them retain. According to Rhodes, one builds a club through its players, and if a franchise loses their core players, then one does have a lot of questions.
"I'm not big involved in the auction set up so it's not something that I give a lot of thought to. I don't lose any sleep over right to match that's for sure. But retention and how many players you can have is obviously questionable, because you try and build a culture within a team as a coach. It's not just the coaching skills, you try and build a culture within a team as a coach i mean it's not just the coaching skills you try and bring a team culture in and when you're losing a good part of your team in the mega auctions it's very tough to do that so so right to match for me is a case of okay. But the question is can we retain more than just two or three or four players because that's how you build a team culture."
RTM itself is a regulation that allows teams, if their bid matches the highest amount made by a franchise, to immediately acquire the player who played for them the previous season. The RTM rule has not been applied in IPL auctions since 2018, having come into effect in 2014.
BCCI has not decided on the number of retentions and RTM cards for the forthcoming IPL season, as the teams were divided during the board meeting early this month. Two successful franchises of the previous season, Kolkata Knight Riders and Sunrisers Hyderabad, wish to be retained for more than three seasons, while others like Punjab Kings prefer minimum retention so they can enter the auction with all guns blazing.
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