IPL 2025: Why the Impact Player is not really a villain for India's all-rounders

For the uninitiated, here’s the TL;DR – the rule allows teams to substitute one player for another at any point during a match. The one who comes in can participate as a regular player would, i.e. they can bat (as long as only 11 players bat in total), or bowl their full quota of overs.

Teams can spend less time racking their brains over balancing the XI, because they can play one specialist batter and swap them out with a bowler instead, or vice-versa. This is largely how it has been used so far.

One common set of arguments against the impact sub is that the rule hinders the development of Indian all-rounders in particular, as ventured by CricViz’s Ben Jones on the latest Wisden Cricket Weekly Podcast: “Does this system and this rule turn Abhishek Sharma into a guy that bowls two overs of spin, or a guy that is one of the best opening batters in the world and bowls four overs of spin, and thus is maybe the best T20 all-rounder the world?”

“What about the all-rounders, from a domestic standpoint?” asked Tom Moody on Cricinfolast year. “What’s happening to the vision around developing all-rounders because suddenly, they become nearly redundant – unless they’re premium, like a Hardik Pandya-style or [Ravindra] Jadeja-style all-rounder?”

Even then-India T20I skipper Rohit Sharma said on the Club Prairie Fire podcast in 2024: “I am not a big fan of the Impact sub rule. It is going to hold all-rounders back, eventually cricket is played by 11 players not 12 players. If you look just from the cricketing aspect of it, I feel guys like Shivam Dube and Washington Sundar aren’t getting to bowl, which for us [India] is not a good thing.”

“Impact Player is like a test case. We have implemented it slowly. The biggest advantage of it is that two Indian players are getting a chance [in each game], which is the most important,” were then-BCCI secretary Jay Shah’s words to reporters midway through last year's IPL.

The Impact Player: Where are we now?

Just two days before the start of IPL 2025, there were rumours that the Impact Player might be scrapped, but the BCCI is set to keep it in place, and re-evaluate at the end of this mega-auction cycle in 2027, ostensibly since the franchises have built their squads with the rule in mind (its introduction came one year into the previous three-year cycle).

This regulation was first trialled in the 2022/23 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, with the substitution having to be made before the end of the 14th over of either innings. This limitation was done away with for the following IPL, when it was introduced, and subsequently for the 2023/24 SMAT season.

The BCCI then scrapped the rule for the 2024/25 SMAT, but did not provide a reason. The upshot of this move, though, is that we may begin to have an idea of what a post-Impact Player world could look like.

In both the SMAT and the IPL, its introduction had one clear and obvious shift, bowling-wise: fewer players averaged between three and four overs per match, and more bowled between two and three overs per match.

Teams were able to effectively play an extra bowler, who could take the overs that a part-timer might have earlier, and on occasion step in for another specialist – thereby bringing those bowlers' averages down to the same 2-3 over range.

In the 2024/25 SMAT, after the Impact Player was taken away, the percentage of bowlers that got through 3-4 overs on average didn’t return to pre-Impact seasons, but remained at the same level as the two seasons with the rule.

The gap of that extra bowler, rather than being filled in by the other specialist bowlers, was taken by those who had previously averaged fewer than an over per match – mostly part-timers or all-rounders. It’s too little to go off to say this will also happen in the IPL when – or if, at all – the rule goes, but it is interesting to note.

Individual examples: Is the Impact Player reducing bowling opportunities?

Among these all-rounders was Dube, one of the players name-checked by Rohit when talking about the rule. He had averaged 12 and three balls per match respectively in the two SMAT Impact Player seasons. In the latest one, he bowled 19 overs in five matches – just an over below the maximum possible.

In the IPL, Dube averaged 4.2 balls per match for RCB (across two seasons), 3.3 for RR (one season) and just 0.4 for CSK (three seasons, two with the IP). In IPL 2023, the first with the Impact Player, he did not bowl at all in 11 matches.

Shivam Dube – Balls bowled per match

The other player mentioned by Rohit was Sundar. In three SMAT seasons from 2017/18 to 2019/20, he averaged 20.6 balls per match. Across the two IP seasons, this was 21.6, roughly the same.

Sundar averaged 18 balls, or three overs per match across his six pre-Impact IPL seasons. The lowest he recorded over one season was 16.4 in his debut campaign, aged 17. In the two Impact Player seasons, he has averaged 15 balls, or two and a half overs.

Washington Sundar – Balls bowled per match

Finally, take Abhishek, India’s current T20I opener who had burst onto the IPL as a lower-order hitter who could bowl left-arm spin. He bowled six balls per game in his first SMAT campaign, and didn’t bowl at all in his second one.

Read more: Going hard at hard lengths: How Abhishek Sharma unlocked a different dimension in the England T20Is

In 2021/22, he bowled three overs per match and in the two IP seasons bowled three and two overs per match respectively. In the post-IP season, he went back up to three per game.

In seven IPL seasons, the most Abhishek has bowled across a single campaign is 7.5 balls, just over one over per match – in 2020 and 2021.

Abhishek Sharma – Balls bowled per match

There’s a common thread between these players – all of them bowl more in the SMAT than in the IPL. Only natural in one sense, since the IPL is a world-class competition with Indian and foreign internationals all involved, meaning opportunities will be more difficult to come by.

More crucially, the introduction of the Impact Player did not affect how much these players bowled in the SMAT, and neither did it significantly change anything in the IPL. The biggest shift was for Sundar, and that was a matter of three balls per match. Abhishek and Dube were not used much even pre-Impact.

These two points are important in conjunction.

The reason these players’ involvements aren’t affected much in the SMAT is because at that level, they may be genuine all-rounders – good enough to be relied upon as specialist bowler or batter as the game and/or team demands.

But when they step up to the next level, perhaps only one of their skills holds up as well: Dube and Abhishek have been excellent batters, while Sundar still hasn't quite cracked where he sits between the two disciplines in T20 cricket.

India’s true, top-quality all-rounders have not been affected by the Impact Player in the least. Hardik Pandya has bowled significantly despite a couple of injury issues since it came in, and has led two franchises while doing so. Axar Patel has been a shoo-in for and will now captain Delhi Capitals, and Ravindra Jadeja remains a vital cog for CSK.

Balls per match since IPL 2020

* = seasons with Impact Player

The counter to this, of course, is that these three could only develop because at the early stages of their career, there was no Impact Player to get in the way.

But as we’ve seen, there is little to suggest that the rule has made a significant difference to the match practice Indian all-rounders get at the top level.

Also read: IPL 2025: Mumbai Indians announce Hardik Pandya's replacement as captain for first game

Could the Impact Player actually help the Indian national team?

It is true that IP diminishes the significance of the all-rounder, as it essentially allows teams to play seven batters and five bowlers. But even before the rule came in, T20 sides looked to bat to No.8 and have at least six bowling options. So even with the Impact Player, this is only achieved with at least one all-rounder in the lineup.

In fact, conversely, the Impact Player rule at IPL level may benefit the national team by essentially tightening the requirements at the top level. With maybe only one spot available instead of two, the bar is now higher to make it into a team as an all-rounder, so the ones who do will make it as genuinely two-skilled players.

Also read: Why South Africa in the 90s were one of the best ever ODI sides, even without a World Cup win

This is potentially something that could be extremely important going forward. With batters being more severe in every format, it’s become more difficult to sneak in part-time bowlers anymore, making genuine all-rounders a more pressing need.

What the Impact Player has done so far is reduce the role of part-timers. It means the number of batters who bowl might go down, but now the quality coming through could increase – only a good thing, as far as the BCCI is concerned. Perhaps unintentionally, the Impact Player rule could end up being the difference between the Indian team having five part-timers, or three genuine all-rounders.

Read more: IPL 2025: LSG are perfectly placed to revive Rishabh Pant the T20 opener

None of Dube, Sundar or Abhishek can genuinely be seen as frontline bowling options in T20 cricket. Critics of the IP might put this down to the rule itself, but at least an equally large part is down to one of the simplest truths around player selection – they just haven’t quite grabbed the few chances that have been given to them at the top level.

Future cases: Riyan Parag and Nitish Kumar Reddy

A couple of other players of note are Riyan Parag and Nitish Kumar Reddy. Riyan regularly bowls up to four overs in T20s for his domestic side Assam, partly a result of being by far the best player in a weak team.

But he averages just about one ball per game in the IPL, Impact Player or not, suggesting that RR don’t see him even as a part-time option. That hasn’t affected him at the international level though, as he did bowl all 10 overs in his only ODI so far – granted, in favourable conditions.

Reddy has been highly impressive with the bat at the top level, but has conceded at 11.4 runs an over from 18 IPL overs so far. In his only SMAT campaign, in 2021/22 (pre-IP), he bowled two overs across five matches, conceding 28 runs. Of course, he does bowl regularly in red-ball cricket; 20 overs per first-class match, outside of Test cricket.

There’s little in his record to suggest he is a genuine all-rounder in the shortest format at this point – and by his lack of bowling opportunities at SRH, not much more in training either.

The emphasis here is more on those players with batting as the primary skill, since the reverse has always been considered important. Bowlers have always been encouraged to develop their batting, and many do so willingly. This is natural, since match situations mean they may be forced to bat, but batters are never obliged to bowl.

Have the BCCI now got the Impact Player balance right?

Purely from a development standpoint, the BCCI might have hit upon the correct balance of removing the Impact Player from the SMAT but retaining it in the IPL. Implementing it in both competitions would give more credence to current fears that younger players might not see the value in developing both their batting and bowling.

Assuming the T20 pipeline is SMAT -> IPL -> the national team, the current system ensures upcoming players are encouraged to develop all-round skills at the domestic level, before a stricter criterion in the IPL helps the cream of the crop filter upwards.

Also read: IPL 2025: Should Sunil Narine still open for KKR?

None of this means the Impact Player is a must-have, but early evidence also indicates that removing it might not entirely deal with the other main objection of the rule either – that it makes games unrealistically high-scoring.

After the first IP season of the SMAT, the tournament run-rate went up from 7.21 to 7.40 runs per over. In the second, it went from 7.40 to 8.09, and even after the rule was scrapped, it went from 8.09 to a staggering 8.57 runs per over.

There were 13.9 sixes per match in the latest season, and a boundary was hit every 5.5 balls – both tournament records, and Baroda scored a world-record 349-5 against Sikkim where every batter who faced at least six balls struck at over 250.

This aspect of the rule makes following the 2025-2027 IPL and SMAT in parallel even more interesting. But that is for another day, and another piece.

The bottom line here, perhaps, is that reports of the all-rounder’s death are greatly exaggerated.

All statistics correct before the start of IPL 2025.

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