BENGALURU: The IPL Governing Council which was convened on Saturday decided to continue with the hotly-debated Impact Player rule for the IPL 2025 season. The Impact Sub was introduced during the IPL 2023 and since then the rule has vertically divided opinion.
Even in the meeting the BCCI had with the team owners earlier this July, some franchises like Delhi Capitals were not entirely in favour of retaining the Impact Player rule, primarily because it reduced the importance of the all-rounders.
In fact, the nine highest totals in the IPL were made since the introduction of the Impact Player rule and the team often effortlessly crossed 220s and even 250s in the IPL 2024.
“We had a chat with the franchise owners recently. The impact player rule has its pros and cons. The negative is that it makes the allrounder’s role redundant. The positive is that it creates a spot for an Indian player to showcase his talent,” BCCI secretary Jay Shah had said recently.
The Impact Player rule allows a team to replace a player from the starting eleven and bring in a specialist batsman or bowler as per the match situation.
The following decisions were taken in the IPL Governing Council meeting:
The IPL franchises can retain a total of 6 players from their existing squad. This can be either via retention or by using the Right to Match (RTM) option.
It is at the discretion of the IPL franchise to choose their combination for Retentions and RTMs. The 6 retentions / RTM’s can have a maximum of 5 capped players (Indian & Overseas) and a maximum of 2 uncapped players.
The auction purse for the franchises has been set at INR 120 Crore for IPL 2025. The total salary cap will now consist of auction purse, incremental performance pay and match fees. Previously in 2024, the total salary cap (auction purse + incremental performance pay) was Rs. 110 Crs which will now be Rs. 146 Crs (2025), Rs. 151 Crs (2026) and Rs. 157 Crs (2027).
A match fee has been introduced for the first time in the history of IPL. Each Playing member (Including the Impact Player) will get a match fee of INR 7.5 Lakhs per match. This will be in addition to his contracted amount.
Any Overseas Player will have to register for the Big Auction. In case the overseas player doesn’t register, then he will be ineligible to register in the following year’s player auction.
Any player who registers in the player auction and after getting picked at the auction, makes himself unavailable before the start of the season, will get banned from participating in the tournament and player auction for 2 Seasons.
A capped Indian player will become uncapped, if the player has in the last five calendar years preceding the year in which the relevant Season is held, not played in the starting XI in International Cricket (Test match, ODI, Twenty20 International) or does not have a Central Contract with BCCI. This will be applicable for Indian Players only.
The Impact Player Regulation will continue for the 2025 to 2027 cycle.
