Kamal Ghorui
Ahead of the Indian Premier League 2026 season, Axar Patel has voiced his dissatisfaction with the Impact Player rule, admitting that he is personally not a fan of the regulation. The Delhi Capitals skipper believes the rule diminishes the value of all-rounders in the tournament, which begins on March 28.Introduced in 2023, the Impact Player rule allows teams to bring in a specialist batter or bowler as a substitute during a match. Axar, however, feels this has altered team combinations significantly. “I don’t like this rule, honestly, because I am an all-rounder. Earlier, you would pick an allrounder for batting and bowling.
“But because of this rule, the team management goes for a particular batsman or bowler, thinking ‘Why do we need an allrounder?’ Since I am an allrounder, I don’t like the rule. At the same time, rules are rules and we need to follow them. From a personal point of view though, I don’t like the rule,” he said during a pre-season press conference.Delhi Capitals will begin their IPL 2026 campaign against Lucknow Super Giants at the Ekana Cricket Stadium on April 1. This is not the first time Axar has raised concerns about the rule. Back in 2024, when he served as vice-captain, he had mentioned that the Impact Player rule affected his batting position.Despite maintaining a career IPL economy rate of 7.3, Axar endured a difficult bowling season in 2025, his least effective since joining Delhi in 2019. He conceded runs at 8.5 per over and managed just five wickets in 11 innings. However, he clarified that his struggles were due to a finger injury suffered during India’s successful 2025 Champions Trophy campaign, not the Impact Player rule.“The 2025 Champions Trophy was right before the IPL. During CT, my spinning finger sustained a cut: when I was bowling, because of the seam of the ball, it kept getting cut further. It turned into a deep cut. Because of that, I couldn’t put pressure and rotation on the ball.“I was bowling less because of that and was thinking of bowling only wherever needed and saving my finger. After seven matches, when my finger healed, I resumed bowling. It was not because of the Impact Player rule,” he explained.While his bowling numbers dipped, Axar made up for it with the bat, enjoying one of his most productive IPL seasons in 2025. He scored 263 runs in 11 innings at a strike rate of 158, including four scores above 30, and maintained a strike rate of 159 in the middle overs to provide momentum for Delhi.
