The newly introduced ‘Impact Player’ rule in the Indian Premier League (IPL) may have been the reason for Rinku Singh’s ouster from the Indian T20 World Cup squad announced on Tuesday (Apr 30), according to an unnamed BCCI official, as quoted by news agency PTI. 

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The BCCI selection committee led by Ajit Agarkar announced the 15-member squad for the World Cup in the West Indies and United States of America (USA), scheduled to start in June. However, the fans are slamming the panel for only relying on IPL form to select the squad – a sentiment that was echoed by the BCCI official. 

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“No doubt, Rinku paid the price for the Impact Player Rule. He is plain and simple unlucky. Hardik might be in poor form but he is still India’s best seam bowling all-rounder and it would have been a risk dropping him considering he is the only one who has bowled,” a BCCI source told PTI on conditions of anonymity.

The Impact Player rule allows the IPL teams to essentially play a “12-a-side” match which means someone like Rinku did not have ample batting opportunities this season to show his talent. 

Impact rule tips scales in Dube’s favour 

In the eight matches for KKR, Rinku has only faced 82 balls, which averages around 10 balls per inning. Apart from the KKR openers, Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer and Angkrish Raghuvanshi have faced the lion’s share of bowling. 

Comparatively, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) have utilised Shivam Dube as the enforcer, often bringing him at no. 4 and 5 to up the scoring rate. The faith imposed by the CSK think tank in Dube’s batting has led to the southpaw’s return to the Indian squad as well.  

However, if there was no Impact Player rule, Dube would not have been substituted nearly as much as he has been, due to poor returns with the ball. Skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad has barely tossed the ball to Dube this season as he becomes easy fodder for the batters.  

Consequently, the selection committee agreed that slotting Rinku alongside Pandya and Dube was too big of a risk. 

Ever since making his debut for the Indian team in the T20 format, Rinku has been one of the most consistent batters. In his short 15-match T20I career so far, Singh has scored 356 runs at an average of 89 and strike rate of 176.24 – a stat combination that not many modern batters can boast of, especially in the Indian squad. 

India squad: 

Rohit Sharma (c), Hardik Pandya (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wk), Sanju Samson (wk), Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Arshdeep Singh, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd. Siraj

Reserves: Shubman Gill, Rinku Singh, Khaleel Ahmed and Avesh Khan

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