It should go without saying that the Impact Player rule has significantly changed the way that players approach batting in the IPL. For the first time since the IPL’s inception, the national side won the T20 World Cup in 2024, allaying any concerns that it would harm their chances in the T20 International format.
With the 2024 IPL shattering numerous batting records, the arrival of Impact Player has undoubtedly freed up the batters in the competition like never before. Since Impact Player’s launch, the IPL has seen more 200+ totals than the first ten tournament editions put together. Nine of the ten IPL 250+ totals have been reached since 2023, and eight of those were in 2024 alone.
With teams scoring a run or more more in 2024 (9.56) than they did in the previous season (8.54) prior to the rule’s implementation in 2022, the scoring rates have skyrocketed. Even while teams were placing a lower value on wickets, which led to more dismissals, the increase in scoring rates has counteracted the decline and caused the batting average to soar.
With India’s run rate in the Twenty20 Internationals following their World Cup victory standing at 9.90/over, the impact of this has also been seen in the batting ranks of the national team. During this time, they have won an incredible 17 out of 20 matches and amassed the two highest totals in Twenty20 Internationals against two Full Member countries. Everything suggests that Impact Player has let the batters loose, but this article examines the specifics.
The strike rate for the first five balls (FFB SR)
The strike rate of batters in the first five balls of their innings is the metric utilized in this analysis to measure the shift in batters’ mindsets. At the beginning of their innings, batters are usually the most agitated, and the more time they spend in the middle, the better. FFB SR is a perfect measure for this research because most hitters utilize the first part of their innings to adjust to the conditions, even though the time it takes for them to get set and perform at their best will vary based on their particular form and quality. The two seasons since Impact Player’s launch (2023–24) and the two seasons right before it (2021–22) serve as the comparison periods in this analysis.
Batters launch attacks earlier.
Impact Player’s arrival has undoubtedly caused teams to view wickets as less important than they once were, as evidenced by the fact that batters now aim to attack more early in their innings. In the last two seasons, this has increased to 58.1% from attacking 51.7% of their deliveries in the first five balls of their innings in 2021–2022.
The attacking shots have come at the expense of strike rotation, suggesting that batters are now wired to get into the rhythm of their innings by playing higher risk boundary shots rather than by rotating the strike, even though the percentage of balls defended (including those with no shot offered) has essentially stayed the same, at 14.2% in 2021–22 to 14.8% in 2023–24. Both fours and sixes are more common in the beginning of an innings, but the frequency of sixes is significantly higher than that of fours, suggesting that batters are more likely to hit the ball in the air early on than they were prior to Impact Player.
Too many comparisons
With the exception of the 18th over, when there is only a slight decline of a few decimal places, there is an increase in run rates in every over bowled from the 2021–22 phase to the 2023–24 phase when comparing the scoring rates between the two phases. The innings’ third and second overs, with increases of more than 20% each, have the largest percentage increases.
In actuality, five of the top eight spots are overs during the Powerplay. Out of an innings’ three stages (Powerplay, middle, and death), Powerplay has seen the biggest increase in scoring rates (16.9%) in comparison to the other two phases (9.7% and 8.6%, respectively). Since Impact Player adds depth to batting lineups, the three other overs in the top eight—the fourteenth, fifteenth, and seventeenth—indicate the early start of death overs from a hitting perspective.
In batting order
When examining the FFB SR by batting position, opening batters saw the largest increase throughout the two periods under examination, rising 23.8%, while other positions saw an overall increase of 14.4%. All batting positions see increases, but positions #8 and #9 see the biggest spikes, rising by more than 20%, highlighting the additional batting depth brought about by Impact Player’s inclusion.
Which group adopted Impact Player more successfully than the others?
Shortly before the 2023 tournament, the Impact Sub rule was announced, and CSK was the only team to immediately embrace the concept. The IPL top eight batters for CSK had a first-ball strike rate of 123.64, which was second only to MI’s 127.10. However, CSK batsmen controlled the danger of being removed once per 53.1 balls, compared to MI’s 20.7. Ajinkya Rahane (154.54), Shivam Dube (139.70), and MS Dhoni (FFB SR of 161.53) were the three batsmen leading CSK. This added aggression did help them in a shortened IPL final against GT, and they duly finished as the season’s champions.
Surprisingly, PBKS was the team that was ahead of the curve at the beginning of the 2022–24 cycle. Their top eight scored 121.14 in the IPL 2022, far ahead of the others. In the two seasons when Impact Player was available, their numbers dropped to 120 and 116.15, respectively, and they finished in the bottom half because they were unable to keep up with the pace.
With first five-ball strike rates for their top eight of the season registering 145.51 and 135.27, respectively, KKR and SRH, the two IPL 2024 finalists, are at the top of the chart. The two underperforming teams from the previous three years experienced these enormous jumps, while KKR’s year-over-year increase witnessed a staggering 32.3% increase (from 111 in 2022 and 110 in 2023 to 145 in 2024). Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head, SRH’s opening batsmen, provided the team with a significant boost. From 110 in 2022 and 125 in 2023, the SRH openers’ first five-ball strike rate skyrocketed to an almost unbelievable 192 in 2024.
Modification at the top
According to all of the aforementioned testimonials, the Impact Player’s thinking has changed the most during the Powerplay phase and at the top of the order. Since 2023, openers have attacked 53.5% of their balls in the first five balls faced in their innings, up from 45.5% in the two seasons prior. Travis Head tops the list of players who have opened at least ten times since 2023 with an FFB SR of 171 in the IPL 2024 (he did not play in the 2023 edition). Prithvi Shaw comes in second with an FFB SR of 160. Following Shaw, there is a significant decline, with Phil Salt at third place hitting at 145 and Yashasvi Jaiswal (142) not far behind.
The Impact Player period’s FFB SR for openers was 116.86, representing a 23.8% increase in percentage compared to the two prior years. Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhishek Sharma, Faf du Plessis, and Mayank Agarwal are the four batters whose FFB SR and percentage growth during the two periods are higher than the league average.
Jaiswal’s FFB SR increased from 106.28 in 2021–2022 to 142.22 since 2023 thanks to the additional freedom provided by the Impact Sub. His consistency has not been impacted, since his dismissal rate has stayed mostly stable. Although it’s now generally acknowledged that there is a trade-off, Abhishek Sharma has also experienced a rise in FFB SR, which has led to him being fired much more frequently. In contrast to his 2021–22 days, when he averaged 21.83 off his first five balls and remained at 89.11, Du Plessis is the other big mover. He is hitting at 118 in his first five balls and has not been out in this phase in the last two editions combined.
Sunil Narine’s peculiar case
At a strike rate of 180.74, 488 runs were scored in 14 innings. The main contributor to KKR’s IPL 2024 championship run was Sunil Narine, who turned the clock back to his heyday at the top of the order in 2017–18. Narine averaged 10.06 in T20s the year before the 2024 Indian Premier League, and he has been averaging 8.33 in the ten months following his KKR masterpiece. With a high rate of false shots (29.7%, the highest among the top six batters) that was out of proportion to the frequency of dismissals that often accompany incorrect shots, Narine had an exceptionally fortunate season during his golden streak.
Narine attacked more balls than any other IPL 2024 opener in the opening five-ball phase of his innings (84.3%), but he scored a respectable 93.54 runs per ball. Although he only led to two dismissals, he had the greatest false shot percentage for this phase, coming in at 45.3%, the more attacking shots he played. Although Phil Salt, his opening partner, had a strike rate of 161.11, he was the one who came closest to Narine in terms of false shot percentage (44.2%).
Both Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Quinton de Kock, who have both been at the bottom of the first five balls strike rate among openers since 2023 (104.28 and 98.11, respectively), are set to be Narine’s top-order partners. Before deciding on Narine and Salt in 2024, KKR used the most opening combinations in 2022 and 2023. As they prepare to defend the title, they will be fervently hoping that the starting opening combination will remain.
Dhoni discovers his specialty
The Impact Player rule has given MS Dhoni’s IPL career a fresh lease on life and improved role clarity after he had his worst seasons in 2021 and 2022. He averaged 24.71 and struck at 117.29 in 24 innings during the 2021–22 season, which is a low score for someone who batted at number six or lower most of the time. He was a slow starter, as evidenced by his first five balls SR of just 93.45 during this time.
His solitary middle-field appearance in the IPL was in 2019, and he required time before launch, which is frequently a premium for batsmen lower in the order in T20 cricket. He had played his final match for India in 2019. He likely was exposed to spin a little more frequently than ideal because he walked out to the middle in ten of these twenty-four innings before the death overs (the sixteenth over) began. In the first five-ball phase, he faced spinners for 32.7% of the deliveries and scored 57.14/100 balls.
Dhoni is striking at 203.85 from 24 innings, which is more significant than his average of 37.86 (inflated by 16 not outs) since the Impact Player start. With the exception of the truncated chase in the IPL 2023 final, he faced his first ball after the fifteenth over in 23 of these 24 innings. His entrance point is more tailored to his skills because of the extra batter in the lineup, and during the past two seasons, he has faced more than 81.8% of the balls from seamers at the beginning of his innings (the first five balls). In comparison to the previous two editions, Dhoni’s first five balls SR more than doubled over the past two years, going from 93.45 to 189.61, with the latter being the best for anyone during this time.
India
