Shardul Thakur openly attacks BCCI after scintillating IPL performances

LSG pacer Shardul Thakur became the latest cricketer to slam the Impact Player rule and feels that it is not fair for the bowlers to see such a high number of runs on the scoreboard all the time.

Shardul Thakur is not the first person to criticise this rule. Some prominent Indian cricketers like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and MS Dhoni have already expressed their desire for this rule to be removed completely to allow a fair balance between bat and ball.

The Impact Player rule allows the team to play an extra batter and bowler in their line-up. Due to the presence of an extra batter, the teams have been highly aggressive in their approach, thus resulting in the teams scoring a high number of runs.

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Shardul Thakur slams the Impact Player Rule

While speaking at the post-match presentation after LSG's win over SRH, Shardul Thakur was highly critical of the Impact Player rule and spoke about the balance between bat and ball. He feels that it is not fair to the bowlers to see scores around 250 all the time.

"See, I feel bowlers got very little on these kinds of pitches and even in the last game pre-match, I said that pitches should be prepared in such a manner that the game hangs in the balance for batters and bowlers," said Shardul.

"Especially after the impact sub-rule coming in, it's not fair on bowlers to see scoreboards 250, 260 and 270 runs every time. That's my honest opinion," the LSG pacer added.

The Impact Player Rule, combined with some of the best batting wickets, has resulted in the batting teams making several records. The rule was introduced in 2023 and since then, the graph of run-scoring has touched new heights.

Shardul Thakur joins Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and MS Dhoni

Not only Shardul Thakur, other prominent Indian cricketers like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and MS Dhoni have also spoken against the rule. While Rohit feels that the rule will hamper the growth of all-rounders, Kohli spoke about the disrupted balance between bat and ball.

"I generally feel that it is going to hold back [development of allrounders] because eventually cricket is played by 11 players, not 12 players. I'm not a big fan of the impact player. You are taking out so much from the game just to make it a little entertainment for the people around," Rohit had said on the Club Prairie Podcast.

"I say it how it is. If you see in this IPL, okay, entertainment is on one side, but the bowlers are feeling like what they should do (to restrict the batters). I have never experienced anything like it where bowlers think they will concede a four or a six every ball," Kohli told Jio Cinema.

Not just Rohit and Kohli, former India captain MS Dhoni also feels that the rule didn't need to be implemented as the IPL was already going well at that time.

Shardul Thakur's match-winning performance

Shardul Thakur produced a match-winning performance with the ball against Sunrisers Hyderabad as he finished with figures of 4-34 in four overs. The right-arm pacer picked up the big wickets of Abhishek Sharma and Ishan Kishan at the top to land two early blows on SRH.

He came back later in the death overs to snap up the wickets of Abhinav Manohar and Mohammed Shami. His brilliant bowling earned him the Player of the Match award as he helped to reduce SRH to a below-par total, which was chased down easily in the end.

It is to be noted that Shardul remained unsold in the IPL 2025 auction earlier. However, LSG's long list of injuries forced the franchise to sign him at the last moment, and Shardul didn't disappoint.