IPL’s Impact Player rule and killing the soul and spirit of the game

This perfect Impact Player switch, or any other playing XI change, is an outrageous amendment that contradicts the ethos of cricket. Cricket isn’t 11 vs 11 any longer; it’s 12 vs 12.

Was the empowerment of the good-old drinks carrying 12th man the most-pressing issue facing T20 cricket? This also leads to an obvious question that no one in the BCCI seemed to have asked: Does the game’s shortest format really need an additional player?

Success rate: low

Basic arithmetic says that 7 skilled batsmen in a T20 team would barely get 3 overs each. By any stretch of imagination, these are way too many batters to conquer the highest of run peaks.

An additional batsman in T20 is an indulgence. It’s a classic problem of plenty. More batsmen waiting in the dressing room can make those on the pitch, and also the coaches in the dugout, restless. Drinks break messages to push the score can get more frequent and this outside pressure can trigger panic on the pitch.

So far this season, it has been proved that the extra Impact batsmen in the line-up don’t make chasing easy. In the ongoing IPL, only 3 of the 9 chases have been successful. Certain cricket principles never change: On a bad day, forget 8, even 11 batsmen can’t stop a collapse.

Such in the nature of T20 cricket that even bringing in a bowler as Impact Player has a low probability of success. Only in rare cases will it prove to be an inspired move that turns the game on its head.

Cricket’s pro-substitute apologists have a habit of quoting the football example. They talk about scheming managers in overcoats, sitting on the sidelines, changing the complexion of the game with their smart change of players. Over the years, football has had several stories of how a sudden influx of a couple of new players, changes team tactics, formation, flow of the game and, in many cases, even the eventual result.

Cricket works utterly differently, and the administrators should have known their sport better. By its very nature, it isn’t a free-flowing dynamic game. It’s a unique team sport that is the sum total of several individual battles. At any point in the game, it’s always a one-on-one situation, a direct batsman-bowler face-off.

Since T20 is mostly played on flat and dead tracks, teams always pick their best bowlers in the playing XI. If a bowler on the bench comes in as an Impact Player and changes the game, it’s seen more as a stroke of luck and less of a manager’s tactical victory.

DNA reengineering

Unlike in cricket, substitution has been part of football’s DNA. It was a necessity, not like in the case of cricket, an after-thought. Football, the rough energy-sapping sport for real athletes, always needed extra men on the sidelines. Over the years, as football evolved, managers would use the bench strength strategically. Stopping the game to change personnel hasn’t always been about swapping the tired legs with fresh ones. It would become a tactic to bolster the defence, slow down the game or waste time. Organically, with time, the rule grew into a strategic weapon that the managers used judiciously.

Cricket, historically, has been a leisure sport. It has never matched football’s frantic pace. Back in the day, even if a batsman got tired or developed a niggle, he didn’t leave the field. There was always the option of opting for a runner. A bowler too got a breather between balls, overs and sessions. He could even walk into the dressing room and return after a shower. Cricket has always believed in telling every player, very early in the day, before the toss, if she or he will be needed to bat or bowl. It also taught you to live with the cards dealt to you.

Cricket’s youngest off-spring, the T20 format, is going against the grain. By wanting to be football, it faces an identity crisis. It has also fought the tag of frivolity since its birth. T20 has lacked the depth of its eldest sibling, the Test. This audacious change takes T20 cricket further away from the pure form of cricket, denying it the seriousness it dearly aspires for.

The most common narrative arc in a T20 game is about six-hitting sprees against bowlers under pressure or hat-tricks during the period of play when bats were being swung like bar stools at a drunken brawl.

But there are days when T20 gives a glimpse of real cricket.

Like the other day, during R Ashwin’s dream spell against Punjab Kings. His scalp of Zimbabwe star Sikandar Raza – back of good length carrom ball, lands around middle, goes away, beats bat and hits top of off-stump – showcased the subtlety of a nuanced art. It had a story too. Even in T20, a smart off-spinner can knock the stump of a batsman committed to defend.

Last year, there was also the Virat Kohli T20 magical moment. It was when Kohli would shut the world around him and let his subconscious mind take over in the India-Pakistan game of the 2022 T20 World Cup. His instincts would take over and he would unleash a shot to Haris Rauf that only the truly great can deliver. It was as memorable as a Sunny Gavaskar straight drive or Sachin Tendulkar’s six over point.

Repeating mistakes

Instead of waiting for T20 to widen its narrative arc, grow a thin layer of gravitas; the cricket administrators changed the core of the sport to make it seemingly cerebral. But by rewriting the cricketing template for the T20 format – making it a virtual 12 vs 12 contest – the administrators have once again repeated their mistake.

Like it happened in ODIs, the T20 continuity too is gone. In ODIs, the shift from one to two balls made run-making easy and erased the credibility of the ‘all-time’ run-getters list. With the latest shift, T20 too has now turned into a different ball game altogether.

So is there any good the Impact Player rule has done to the game? Maybe, it has extended the careers of ageing super stars. The substitution option means the seniors can avoid fielding. So does it mean, this could not be MS Dhoni’s last season for CSK? Even if his batting form dips, he can play as an Impact Player who keeps wickets and leads the side.

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