Last Updated on 9 months by Charbel Coorey

Cricket News: CricBlog poll showed over half of fans surveyed believe the impact player rule should be removed from the IPL

Rohit Sharma’s comments on the impact player rule has reignited the debate as to whether it should remain part of the Indian Premier League (IPL). The rule has seen bigger totals in 2023 and 2024 as teams go harder earlier, and has also seen the emergence of talents including Ashutosh Sharma.

However, the Indian T20 captain believes the rule is detrimental to the national team. Speaking on the Club Prairie Podcast to Adam Gilchrist and Michael Vaughan, Rohit said that all-rounders not bowling is not good news for India.

“I generally feel that it is going to hold back [development of allrounders] because eventually cricket is played by 11 players, not 12 players,” Rohit said.

“I’m not a big fan of impact player. You are taking out so much from the game just to make it little entertainment for the people around. But if you look [at] genuinely just cricketing aspect of it, I can give you so many examples – guys like Washington Sundar, Shivam Dube are not getting to bowl, which for us [India] is not a good thing.”

CricBlog survey at end of IPL 2023 showed over half of fans vote no to the impact player rule

At the end of the IPL 2023 season, CricBlog conducted a fan poll on the tournament. One of the questions was whether the impact player rule should return. Interestingly, 51% of the 17,000+ participants voted no.

The general consensus against the rule is that cricket should remain an 11 vs. 11 player battle. Also, the rule has the potential to mask any shortcomings at the auction table.

ESPNcricinfo, in their report of Rohit Sharma’s comments, conducted their own poll. A whopping 87.9% of responded “no” to the question of whether the impact player rule should stay.

What do you think? Should the rule stay or is it too detrimental to India’s team balance in T20s?

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