T20 and the IPL have been at the forefront of innovation in cricket since its first season in 2008, and the 2024 season has seen the competition stick with the recently introduced rule: the impact player.
Substitutes have been trialed in rival domestic T20 tournaments before with varying degrees of success, albeit with slightly different rules to those in the IPL.
Here's everything you need to know about impact players, as well as a refresher on strategic timeouts and how they work in the 2024 tournament.
IPL strategic timeouts: What are they?
Strategic timeouts are short periods in a match that allow for teams to reassess their tactics depending on the state of play at the time.
They also allow broadcasters a chance to squeeze in some more advertisements and boost their revenue.
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How do strategic timeouts in the IPL work?
Each team is afforded one strategic timeout per innings.
The bowling team can choose to take theirs any time between the sixth and ninth overs of the innings, as decided by the fielding captain, while the batting team can take theirs between the 13th and 16th overs of the innings.
Each timeout goes for three minutes.
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What are Impact Players in the IPL?
Introduced last year for the 2023 season, impact players give teams the opportunity to change up the balance of their side by substituting one player for another for the remainder of the match.
In an announcement ahead of the 2023 player auction, the IPL revealed an impact player rule would be introduced for that campaign.
"This will add a new tactical, strategic dimension to the game," the league said in a release. "A number of team sports allow teams to make tactical substitutes i.e., football, rugby, basketball, baseball. The substitute is allowed to perform or participate like any other regular player."
How does the Impact Players rule work in the IPL?
The Impact Player substitute must come from a list of four players, as confirmed before the toss.
Substitutions can be made either before the start of an innings, at the end of the over, at the fall of a wicket, or when a batter retires.
Once replaced, the substituted player can take no further part in the match — not even field.
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Interestingly, teams can replace a player who has already bowled or batted, and the substitute is permitted to bowl their full quota of overs and bat.
That means if a batter replaces someone who has already batted, someone else is unable to bat.
In the IPL, teams are permitted to field a maximum of four overseas players per match, meaning if four overseas players are named in the starting XI, the replacement player must be Indian.
