Impact Player — a tussle between evolution and a level-playing field

Followers of the Indian Premier League will identify Vikram Solanki as the Director of Cricket with Gujarat Titans, the champions on debut in 2022. The Udaipur-born Solanki, who celebrated his 49th birthday on Tuesday, played 51 ODIs and three T20Is for England between 2000 and 2007 with modest returns, but he will go down in history books as the first ‘Super Sub’ in international cricket.

The Super Sub was introduced in One-Day International cricket in July 2005, sending hordes of statisticians, mainly, and scorers across the world into a tizzy. Cricket was always supposed to be 11 versus 11; the Super Sub would make it 12 vs 12 or, in many instances 12 vs 11. How was this cricket?

As an experiment, the Super Sub idea lasted only eight months. Fundamentally flawed because it magnified rather than neutralised the effect of the toss, it met its logical denouement in March 2006 with numerous luminaries, among them then Australian captain Ricky Ponting, exhorting a rollback to the original 11 vs 11 
faceoff. Because the Super Sub had to be named before the toss, it negated the advantage for the captain who lost the toss and conferred a distinct edge to the side that hit it lucky with the coin. The decision makers within the International Cricket Council acted swiftly, though had they been a little more prudent in the lead-up to the unleashing of the Super Sub, it might not have been the worst idea, never mind if the scoring/statistician community was up in arms.

More than a decade later, the concussion sub came into the picture, in 2019. The catalyst for this move was undoubtedly the tragic incident involving Phil Hughes in a Sheffield Shield encounter towards the end of 2014. The prime example of a concussion sub emerging as one of the leading batters for his country is 
Marnus Labuschagne, the first such player in Test cricket when he came on to replace an injured Steve Smith, who was struck on his helmet by Jofra Archer in the Lord’s Test of August 2019. Labuschagne made 59 in his first hit in Test cricket, and despite his recent travails, averages 46.76 from 57 Tests.

The concussion sub is a permanent feature now, used – sometimes misused or abused, one might say — in all formats across all levels but a novelty that the IPL sprung on the game is yet to catch on. In a more nuanced variant of the discarded Super Sub, the IPL permitted the use of an Impact Player from the 2023 edition onwards. Outside of the designated 11, each side can nominate five reserves, from whom the Impact Player can be summoned at any stage. Because this was delinked from the outcome of the toss – any of the five could be used in that capacity, so long as only four overseas players were part of the 12 – it provided a greater level-playing field compared to the Super Sub, though the bowling community might hold a dim view on this development.

Ironically, while the Impact Player has freed up the minds of batting groups and spawned a dramatic increase in the rate of scoring and team totals, the thinking behind this innovation was to bolster bowling depth. In theory, teams could swap a batter for a specialist bowler when they defended a target, thereby precluding the need to rely on the infamous ‘bits-and-pieces’ players. In reality, it has triggered a change in mindsets and attitudes from a batting perspective. The Impact Player might not always make an impact, but the luxury of being able to call up an additional batting resource in the event of a collapse has emboldened teams to shed conservatism and concentrate on all-out attack. That the top five scores of all time in the IPL have come since the start of the 2024 edition is no coincidence.

The once-preferred approach of beginning carefully and then exploding in the second half has now been emphatically thrown out the window. There are no more sighters even if the new ball is swinging or nipping around. No one has benefitted from this more than Sunrisers Hyderabad, who have produced scores of 287, 286 and 277 in the last season and a quarter, taking aggression to ridiculously new heights and marrying it with a consistency that makes them comfortably the most feared batting unit of the competition.

When an Impact Player delivers, it sends a frisson of excitement and satisfaction in the support staff that works out match-ups and the rest and decides who is best suited for that role. Already this season, a slew of such players has made a telling difference, none more so than Ashutosh Sharma, against Lucknow Super Giants.

Rishabh Pant’s men had amassed 209 for eight in their 20 overs and Delhi Capitals were reeling at 65 for five after 6.4 overs when Ashutosh strode in to join Tristan Stubbs, the exciting young South African. The Capitals needed 145 more in 80 deliveries but were fast running out of batters. Among those already back in the hut were skipper Axar Patel and Faf du Plessis, the South African who had captained Royal Challengers 
Bengaluru for the preceding three years.

Ashutosh started slowly, steadying the chase with stands of 48 and 55 respectively with Stubbs and the relatively unknown Vipraj Nigam. Because Stubbs had taken only 22 balls for his 34 and Nigam had scored even more furiously – 39 off just 15, at a strike-rate of 260 – Ashutosh was able to play himself in without feeling the need to score rapidly. Perhaps he had an inkling of what was to come, of how much responsibility he’d have to shoulder. Perhaps he believed that there would come a time when it would all be up to him and therefore it made no sense to take a chance or three early on and throw it all away.

When the Nigam show ended, the Capitals required 42 in 23 deliveries with three wickets in hand; that became 39 in 17 with two wickets remaining when Mitchell Starc ate up five balls in making two before falling to leg-spinner Ravi Bishnoi. Only Kuldeep Yadav and Mohit Sharma were left. The former is no mug with the bat but not exactly a power-hitter while the latter averages 7.34 at a strike-rate of 94.94 in 166 T20s. It was now entirely in Ashutosh’s hands, the fate of the match.

At one point 20 off 20, the powerful right-hander positively exploded towards the closing stages. Pant and his team believed all they needed was one false stroke, but none was forthcoming. Targeting his areas, mainly straight down the ground, the 26-year-old smashed five fours and as many sixes so that his last 11 deliveries produced a remarkable 46 runs. Despite having their backs to the wall, despite the required rate mounting and the wickets tumbling, the Capitals won by one wicket with three deliveries to spare. A massive half an hour. Extraordinary doesn’t even begin to do justice to the carnage at the gob-smacked 
ACA-VDCA Stadium in Visakhapatnam, the Capitals’ temporary home at the start of their campaign.

Ashutosh is the most visible but not the only Impact Player to make a difference at this early stage of this year’s skirmishes. As recently as on Tuesday, but under far less pressure, Nehal Wadhera justified his introduction with a 25-ball 43 not out in Punjab Kings’ eight-wicket rout of, well, Lucknow Super Giants again. Maybe they, more than anyone else, will have deep reservations about the Impact Player, considering how adversely that has impacted their fortunes and left them languishing at sixth in the table a fifth of the way into the league phase.

The Impact Player hasn’t been discussed on a global platform and no other major T20 league has followed in the IPL’s footsteps. Indeed, there was a concerted push from many captains for the scrapping of this rule ahead of this season; among those who have spoken out against this are Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers. But the IPL has gone ahead and extended this concept to the next three seasons, sparking genuine fears that what might be good for the most visible franchise-based league in the world might not necessarily be good for Indian cricket because it will, as it already has, stymie the unearthing of genuine Indian all-rounders.

“It brings an added excitement, clearly, for the audience,” Mo Bobat, RCB’s Director of Cricket, observes. “It also makes sure that games stay live for longer, which is useful. And I think that also is relevant here (at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru) , where games stay live for longer because you can chase quite a lot in the end. So, in many ways, it makes it very exciting for people.”

Bobat’s loyalty is to RCB, as it must be, and he isn’t particularly fussed about how the Impact clause affects Indian cricket per se. Hence, it was no surprise to hear him say, “If you were someone who was particularly bothered about Indian cricket’s future, you might ask a few questions around what it’s done to the all-rounder. But me in this position right now, that isn’t a major concern. It’s a case of us trying to make sure that we use it to our advantage.”

The IPL’s insistence on the Impact Player, yet to surge into international consciousness, hasn’t adversely impacted the national team’s fortunes. India remained unbeaten at the T20 World Cup last year on their way to the title and are unbeaten in their last nine bilateral series. Maybe we are overstating the adverse effect on the Indian all-rounder. Or maybe, just maybe, we are being clairvoyant?