Rohit Sharma
Mumbai Indians opener Rohit Sharma expressed his feelings on the Impact Player rule, saying that it will hold the development of all-rounders, which was introduced in the Indian Premier League (IPL) last year.
The impact player rule allows a particular team to introduce a 12th player to the team from a list in which the five names are given at the time of a toss. A team can bring in a player for the playing XI by replacing any player the team wants, depending on the situation.
Rohit said that due to the impact of the player rule, players like Shivam Dube and Washington Sundar are not getting a chance to bowl, which is not a good thing for Team India.
“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 so much from the game just to make it a little more entertaining for the people around you. But just in 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). I am not sure what you can do about it, but I am not a fan of it,” said Rohit in the Club Prairie Fire podcast.
The 37-year-old player further stated that most of the teams don’t need an extra batter as their batters are doing great upfront.
“It is entertaining though, as there are 12 players to select from and whoever that Impact player is, can see how the game is going and change it based on what you need, and how the pitch is behaving. If you bat well and don’t lose too many wickets, you can add a bowler, which gives you the option of having 6-7 bowlers. You don’t need that extra batter because a lot of the teams upfront are batting well and you hardly see No. 7 or 8 coming to bat,” the right-hand batter added.
In the last fixture against the Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Rohit became the first Indian to smash 500 sixes in T20 cricket. The highest number of sixes in T20 cricket is by West Indies legend Chris Gayle (1,056 sixes), followed by WI all-rounder Kieron Pollard (860 sixes), Andre Russell (678 sixes) and Colin Munro (548 sixes). In six matches this IPL season, Rohit has scored 261 runs at an average of 52.20 and a strike rate of over 167, with a century.
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