The Board of Control for Cricket in India and the Premier League governing council on Friday confirmed that the newly introduced tactical substitution used during the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20, India’s National T20 Championship, will also be adopted in the next edition of the country’s top cricket tournament.
Sent to all ten IPL franchises, a note accessed by ESPNcricinfo from the BCCI reads:
“Also note that from IPL 2023 Season a tactical/strategic concept will be introduced to add a new dimension to IPL, wherein one substitute player per team will be able to take a more active part in an IPL match. The regulations pertaining to the same will be issued shortly.”
The final set of regulations to the effect have not been formalised yet, but there are markers from SMAT 2022-23 on what fans can expect the IPL 2023’s tactical substitution to look like. It isn’t certain if the rule will be applicable on the same lines, but the one put to use by teams during SMAT had the following jurisdictions:
- Each team must appoint four substitution players outside their playing XIs. Only one of these players can be introduced into the contest as the substitute player.
- Called the ‘Impact Player’ in SMAT, the substituted player can only be introduced into the game before the 14th over of either innings. The player could walk in upon the fall of a wicket to bat and bowl his quota of four overs from the change of a pre-existing over.
The tactical implications of the system in play were wide, especially as there were no obvious restrictions to it. The tactical substitute could replace in the middle the batter who had been dismissed or is yet to bat. He could come in for any of the bowlers, who may have bowled some part of his quota, and yet deliver a four-over spell himself in what could be a game-changer for sides who would’ve wished to introduce desired match-ups in play to counter certain opposition ploys.
This is different from the ‘Super Sub’ rule employed in ODIs back in 2005-06 when the substitute player replaced only a certain individual on the field and could not bat if that player had already been dismissed. He could also only bowl that player’s remaining overs of a quota of 10 overs. If the player on the field had bowled four overs before being taken off, the substituted cricketer could only bowl six overs in what was an idea that had its flaws but definite impact.
The tactical substitution also holds a wider impact than the ‘X-factor’ rule put to use in the Big Bash League (BBL) since the start of the pandemic, wherein teams can substitute a member of their playing XI with the player sitting on the outside at the halfway mark of a 20-over innings (start of the 11th over), provided that the player replaced hadn’t already batted or bowled more than one over.
The limited nature of other tactical substitutions used in the past, or present, makes the player substitution rule adopted by SMAT, and now potentially the IPL, one with a larger scope of making a deep impact on games. Especially for the Premier League teams, who are pre-conditioned into fielding a combination of 7-4 in their playing XI, with a maximum of four overseas players allowed to play at a time.
If adopted without restrictions on overseas players, the sides would jump in hurray, knowing they would have the luxury to call in their big-prize bench pick to make an impact in the game at any time he is required. It would amount to playing with five overseas players without disturbing IPL’s longstanding regulation for playing XIs.
