New Delhi, May 14: Delhi Capitals head coach and former Australia captain Ricky Ponting believes high-scoring games will continue to be a norm in the IPL even if the much-debated ‘Impact Player’ rule is discontinued.
The Impact Player rule allows teams to replace one of the original XI announced at the toss at any point during the match.
It has divided opinions with some like India captain Rohit Sharma calling it detrimental for all-rounders as they don’t get a chance to bowl while some others like Sourav Ganguly describing it as a good innovation.
“…there is a talk if the impact player remains in the IPL, if it doesn’t, will the scores come down again? I am interested to see that. I am not sure they will,” the three-time World Cup winner said during the release of Delhi Capitals’ batting coach Pravin Amre’s autobiography ‘Zero FOR 5: The Thrilling Cricket Journey of Pravin Amre’ here on Monday.
“Yes, the impact player does provide a bit of cushion for the guys at the top but I think the guys at the top are so used to going out and playing a certain way.
“I mean imagine trying to tell Jake Fraser-McGurk to play a different way or tell Travis Head to be a little bit defensive, that’s just not going to happen,” he explained.
This year, the 200-mark has been breached 36 times so far in the IPL, compared to the overall count of 37 the previous edition. BCCI secretary Jay Shah has stated that the rule can be reconsidered if that’s what the stakeholders would like at the end of the IPL.
Ponting also spoke about the challenges that a coach faces while handling a franchise. He said the job is more difficult than coaching a national team.“I think it is a lot more difficult being a coach of a franchise team because the different nationalities involved, a few Australian coaches, couple of Australian players, couple of South African players, we have New Zealanders, we have Nepalese part of our squad over the journey,” he said.
“And the hardest part of coaching with the franchise is only getting the players together for a few days before the first game of the season, when you are trying to create culture around the team, you haven’t got much time with the players.
“It’s really hard to do that, it is also hard to make big skill changes in such a short period of time,” he listed the difficulties of the job.
Talking about the evolution of the game in the last decade, Ponting said the space for batters with “classical technique” is shrinking. (PTI)
