Impact Player rule: The next season of the Indian domestic T20 competition will be played with a new innovative role.
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It wouldn’t be wrong to say that the T20 format in cricket has evolved fastest among all other formats. Less than a couple of decades old, T20s have not only faced new intriguing rules to make the game more thrilling but have also witnessed other shorter formats being introduced to further reduce the length of a cricket match.
Any change made with respect to the existing format or the launch of a new format is mostly received with mixed views. While traditionalists often complain of too much tampering with a format, innovation-hungry fans relish attempts being made to further make the sport more exciting.
The former set of people also highlight how attempting to fix something which ain’t broke calls for unnecessary changes disrupting the prevailing template.
Impact Player rule in Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy
Not known for experimenting much regarding formats, BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) have surprised quite a few by introducing tactical substitutes for the upcoming season of Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy.
Despite being against the conservative nature of a cricket match, substitutes are nothing new in this sport. Having said that, BCCI planning to implement such a change in their premier domestic competition is enough a hint around how there is no stopping the T20 evolution.
Known as an “Impact Player”, teams will have to name four substitutes in addition to their Playing XIs from Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2022-23 onward. One of these four players will be allowed to be substituted at any point before the end of the 14th over of either innings.
In the general run of things, cricket’s rendezvous with substitutes have mostly come with a catch that dismissed batters and bowlers who’ve bowled a certain amount of overs cannot be substituted. Even the Big Bash League follows the same.
That being said, BCCI have removed that filter to allow anyone to get substituted irrespective of his involvement in the match by the time the substitution happens.
In simple words, a dismissed batter could be substituted to allow a team an additional batting option provided they only bat with a total of 11 batters. Similarly, a bowler who has bowled his quota of four overs could also be substituted to bring in a death-over specialist before the 14th over.
It is worth mentioning that teams will be allowed to substitute only at the end of an over barring a couple of exceptional cases (batting team substitutes at the fall of a wicket and bowling team substitutes if a fielder gets injured in between an over).
Points to note for Impact Player substitutions
1) Only one Impact Player per team will be allowed in a match.
2) Introducing an Impact Player in a match is not mandatory.
3) Player replaced by the Impact Player won’t be allowed to take part in the remainder of the match (not even as a fielding substitute).
4) If an Impact Player gets injured, normal playing conditions around substitutions will be followed.
