Rohit Sharma Becomes First Captain To Be Named Impact Player In IPL 2023

Mumbai Indians' skipper Rohit Sharma was the Impact Player in their chase of 186 against Kolkata Knight Riders at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Sunday. Rohit opened the innings with Ishan Kishan, and on the very first ball, he was dropped by Umesh Yadav as the bowler missed an easy catch off his own bowling.

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Rohit Sharma might come as impact player. pic.twitter.com/Xl2o3b0kOm

— R A T N I S H (@LoyalSachinFan) April 16, 2023

Earlier, Suryakumar Yadav, who accompanied Nitish Rana for the toss, revealed that Rohit had a stomach bug, which led to him not being included in the first playing XI. In the previous match against Delhi Capitals, Rohit ended his half-century drought in the IPL with a match-winning knock of 62 off 53 balls. Rohit's last fifty before that had come in April 2021 against Punjab Kings in Chennai. Between the two fifties, Rohit had gone 24 innings without a half-century.

The opening duo of Rohit and Kishan gave a solid start to MI, and the Knight Riders' new ball bowlers were struggling to contain them. However, the onus was now on the spinners to come and make a difference in the game as the wicket looked like a belter.

Suryakumar revealed at the toss that Rohit is missing out due to a stomach bug. There was some more big news from the MI camp as Sachin Tendulkar's son, Arjun, is making his debut for the franchise. Rohit's absence comes as a huge blow for MI, as the five-time IPL winning captain hit a half-century in MI's first victory of the season against Delhi Capitals (DC) earlier this week. That was Rohit's first 50-plus score in almost two years in the IPL.

What is Impact Player Rule?

The Impact Player is a new rule introduced by the BCCI for the IPL 2022 season. Each team will name four substitutes along with their starting XI on the team sheet before the toss. One of these four substitutes can later take an active part in the match as an Impact Player. The Impact Player must be Indian if the team has all four overseas players in their playing XI but can be an overseas player if the team has fewer than four overseas players. The Impact Player can replace any starting member of the XI before the 14th over of either innings and can bat and bowl their full quota of overs. The captain has the authority to nominate the Impact Player and decide when or whether to use them. The player who is replaced cannot return as a substitute fielder. The rule was first introduced in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy.

Teams

Kolkata Knight Riders: Rahmanullah Gurbaz(w), Venkatesh Iyer, N Jagadeesan, Nitish Rana(c), Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Shardul Thakur, Umesh Yadav, Lockie Ferguson, Varun Chakaravarthy

Mumbai Indians: Ishan Kishan(w), Cameron Green, Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav(c), Tim David, Nehal Wadhera, Arjun Tendulkar, Hrithik Shokeen, Piyush Chawla, Duan Jansen, Riley Meredith

Kolkata Knight Riders Subs: Suyash Sharma, David Wiese, Anukul Roy, Mandeep Singh, Vaibhav Arora

Mumbai Indians Subs: Rohit Sharma, Ramandeep Singh, Arshad Khan, Vishnu Vinod, Kumar Kartikeya