KKR coach Ryan ten Doeschate opens up on implications of Impact Player Rule

The Impact Player rule has been trending on the Indian cricketing surface ever since national skipper Rohit Sharma voted against it. Former cricketer Zaheer Khan too opined the same that the all-rounders are not getting enough opportunities in the middle like they used to in the past. The likes of Shivam Dube, Venkatesh Iyer and Washington Sundar barely bowled in IPL 2024, which is a concern for the Indian skipper, especially with the T20 World Cup around the corner.

After the match against Royal Challengers Bengaluru, KKR fielding coach Ryan ten Doeschate opined that T20 cricket has changed a lot in recent years, and more so because of the Impact Player Rule. The former cricketer explained that the franchises are very well aware of their batting strength in the modern era and that plays a role in giving the players a lot of freedom, which is one of the prime reasons behind teams crossing the 200-run mark quite consistently these days.

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Doeschate added that the psychology of the batters these days is to whack every ball, as they are aware of the fact that their team has batting depth because of the Impact Player rule. He believes that it has changed modern-day cricket and made the batters fearless.

“The game has become almost unrecognizable from ten years ago. Everyone comes in and hits it and no one takes time to get in anymore. The bowler's job is to steal a couple of dot balls. The modern cricketers, someone like Phil Salt, gets very annoyed if he faces two dot balls. You don't often see that,” Ten Doeschate was quoted as saying by My Khel.

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“I think the Impact Rule has made a massive impact as you have one extra batter. The psychology of knowing that you have got eight or nine players to whack means you never stop. The bowling side will have to be attacking and the batting side has to be fearless and brave in every ball of the 120 balls,” the 43-year-old added.