‘Impact Player’ critic Rohit Sharma not playing XI, named ‘Replacement’ for Hardik Pandya’s MI vs KKR

Days after criticizing IPL’s ‘impact player’ rule, Indian cricket team captain Rohit Sharma found himself on the bench in the match against KKR as an impact substitute in an IPL 2024 game. “I’m not a big fan of the Impact sub-rule. It will stop all players, eventually cricket will be played by 11 players and not 12 players. You are taking too much away from the game to make it fun for the people around. aspect of cricket, I feel like guys like Shivam Dube and Washington Sundar are not getting to play, which for us is not a good thing,” Rohit said on the ‘Club Prairie Fire’ podcast.

“I don’t know what you can do about it. There are 12 players for you, it’s fun, you can make an impact on the player after observing how the game is going, how the field is behaving. you don’t lose wickets, you can add another bowler, this gives you the option of six or seven bowlers. You don’t need that extra batsman because many teams are batting well in front and you hardly see a number 7 or. Number 8 comes in to bat,” he explained.

But he was not in the starting XI of MI vs KKR.

Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya decided to bowl against Kolkata Knight Riders in match 51 of IPL 2024 at the Wankhede Stadium on Friday. Hardik said they made one change to the playing XI, with Naman Dhir replacing Mohammad Nabi.

“It looks very difficult for us but at the same time we want to play good cricket. It’s good to be back home. It looks like a good track and it’s a fresh wicket. We haven’t played on this surface. One change: Naman Dhir comes in for Mohammad Nabi,” said Hardik Pandya at the toss.

Kolkata Knight Riders captain Shreyas Iyer said that they will enter with an unchanged team.

“It’s all about doing the little things well. The message is very clear: every individual knows their role and responsibility. Batting first, let’s go with the same team,” said Shreyas.

Mumbai come into this game on the back of three consecutive defeats, while KKR have won two and lost one in their last three matches. However, Mumbai dominated the head-to-head series, having won 23 out of 32 matches, while KKR won nine.

Playing XIs: Mumbai Indians: Ishan Kishan (wk), Naman Dhir, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya (c), Nehal Wadhera, Tim David, Gerald Coetzee, Piyush Chawla, Jasprit Bumrah, Rohit Sharma

Substitutes: Rohit Sharma, Shams Mulani, Shivalik Sharma, Dewald Brevis, Romário Shepherd.

Kolkata Knight Riders: Phil Salt (wk), Sunil Narine, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Shreyas Iyer (c), Venkatesh Iyer, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakaravarthy

Substitutes: Chetan Sakariya, Anukul Roy, Sherfane Rutherford, KS Bharat, Manish Pandey

With IANS inputs