Mohammed Siraj joins Rohit Sharma in calling for end to IPL Impact Player rule: 'Please remove this...'

Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s Mohammed Siraj celebrates the wicket of Kolkata Knight Riders’ Philip Salt during their match in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024, at Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Sunday. (ANI Photo)

It has been an unusual Indian Premier League season for Royal Challengers Bengaluru as they lost seven out of eight played and are now out of the playoffs.

In this IPL, RCB even conceded the highest total of all time in the league against Sunrisers Hyderabad (288/3) and lost the match by 25 runs.

On 21 April, they conceded 222/6 runs against Kolkata Knight Riders at Eden Gardens, and despite a good fight, they lost the match by 1 run. They are now at the bottom of the IPL points table with a net run rate of -1.046.

As bowlers facing the most trouble with batters hitting high scores and they have least to do, RCB’s ace pacer Mohammed Siraj spoke about the Impact Player rule in the league.

“Please remove this impact sub thing (laughs), the wickets are already flat and there’s nothing for the bowlers in it, previously, it used to be slow at times, but the batters now come out swinging at absolutely everything,” Hindustan Times quoted Siraj as saying ahead of the KKR match with RCB.

Earlier, Indian skipper Rohit Sharma too had his reservations regarding the impact players rule, as he pointed that it is holding the all-rounders back.

“I am not a big fan of Impact sub rule. It is going to hold all rounders back, eventually cricket is played by 11 players not 12 players. You are taking out so much from game to make it entertaining for people around. 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 is not a good thing,” Rohit had said on ‘Club Prairie Fire’ podcast.

Apart from this, former India captain Sunil Gavaskar suggested BCCI to protect bowlers and suggested boundary ropes can be pushed a little more back, especially at smaller venues.

“I wouldn’t suggest any changes to a cricket bat because they are all within regulations, but I have been saying this for a long time, increase the size of the boundary at every ground. Look at this ground today, there is enough space to take it back a little more by a couple of metres. It can often prove to be the difference between a catch and a sixer. You can push that LED or advertisement boards even further so that the boundary rope can go back by 2-3 metres and that will make a difference. Otherwise, the bowlers are the only ones who will suffer,” HT quoted Gavaskar as saying while speaking to fellow India legend Anjum Chopra.

He was of the opinion that the power-hitting in T20 cricket may get boring eventually, citing lack of contest between batters and bowlers.

“What we have been seeing in T20 cricket over the last few days is that this is batting like the coach tells in the nets, ‘This is the last round,’ and everybody starts swinging their bat around bang, bang whether they get out or not. It’s enjoyable to a little extent, but after that it gets…not so exciting. I wanted to use a stronger word, but no,” he added.