IPL analysis: Evaluating the impact of Impact Player

The fact that the Impact Player rule has catalysed a massive shift in batting mentality in IPL goes without saying. Any fears that it would ruin the national team's prospects in the T20 International format were allayed as they won the T20 World Cup in 2024, the first time since the IPL was established.

The addition of Impact Player has certainly set free the batters in the tournament like never before with the 2024 edition of IPL breaking a multitude of batting records. There have been more 200+ totals in IPL since the inception of Impact Player than in the first ten editions of the tournament combined. Of the ten totals of 250-plus in IPL, nine were scored since 2023 and eight in 2024 alone. The scoring rates have soared with teams scoring a run an over additional in 2024 (9.56) compared to what it was in the last season (8.54) before the rule came into effect in 2022. Despite teams putting a lower price on wickets that resulted in an increase in frequency of dismissals, the rise in scoring rates have offset the fall to push the batting average to surge up.

The knock on effect of this has been felt in the batting ranks in national set up too with India's run rate in the T20Is post the World Cup win reading 9.90/over. They have registered the two highest totals in T20Is in matches between two Full Member nations in this period, during which they won an astounding 17 out of 20 matches. While everything points to the fact that Impact Player has unleashed the batters, this piece looks into the nitty gritty of it.

The first five balls strike rate (FFB SR)

The parameter used in this analysis to gauge the change in mindset of batters is the strike rate of batters in the first five balls of their innings. Typically, batters are the most unsettled at the start of their innings and the more they spend the time out in the middle the better they get. While the time for batters to get set and reach their optimal best will vary depending on the form and the quality of an individual batter, most batters use the initial phase of their innings to get used to the conditions which make FFB SR an ideal parameter for this analysis. The periods used for comparison in this analysis are the two seasons since the introduction of Impact Player (2023-24) and the two immediately prior to it (2021-22).

Batters attack more early on

The addition of Impact Player has definitely made teams look at the value of wickets as something more dispensable than previously and this is attested by the fact batters are intent to attack more at the start of their innings. From attacking 51.7% of their deliveries in the initial phase of their innings (first five balls) in 2021-22, this has surged to 58.1% in the last two seasons. While the share of balls defended (including those with no shot offered) has largely remained the same - 14.2% in 2021-22 to 14.8% in 2023-24 - the attacking shots have come at the expense of strike rotation implying batters are now wired to get into the rhythm of their innings playing higher risk boundary shots rather than by rotating the strike. While there is an increase in both fours and sixes at the start of an innings, the rise in frequency of sixes hit is much higher than it is for fours implying batters are willing to hit the ball more in the air early on, something that they were far more reluctant in the period pre-Impact Player.

Over to over comparison

Comparing the scoring rates across the two phases, there is a surge in run rates in each individual overs bowled from the 2021-22 phase to 2023-24 phase, bar the 18th over where there is only a nominal dip by a few decimal points. The two overs with the higher percentage increase are the third and second overs of an innings respectively with an increase marked over 20%. In fact, in the top eight positions, five are overs inside the Powerplay. Of the three phases in an innings (Powerplay, middle and death), the highest increase in scoring rates has come in Powerplay (16.9%) compared to the other two phases (9.7% and 8.6% respectively). The three other overs in the top eight are 14th, 15th and 17th indicating the early onset of death overs from a batting point of view given the additional depth in batting lineups provided by Impact Player.

By batting order

Looking at the FFB SR by batting position, the highest increase in the two period under consideration is for opening batters with a 23.8% increase compared to the overall increase of 14.4% across all positions. There is an increase across all batting positions, but the next two highest surges come for positions #8 and #9, with over 20% increase, underlining the extra batting depth created by the addition of Impact Player.

Which team embraced Impact Player better than the others?

The Impact Sub rule was introduced shortly before the 2023 edition of the tournament and the one team that instantly took the idea on board was CSK. CSK top eight batters' first five balls strike rate in IPL was 123.64, second only to MI's 127.10, but CSK batters managed the risks far batter getting dismissed once every 53.1 balls to MI's 20.7. The three batters at the forefront for CSK were MS Dhoni (FFB SR of 161.53) followed by Ajinkya Rahane (154.54) and Shivam Dube (139.70). They duly finished the champions of the season, and this extra aggression did come in handy in a shortened IPL final against GT.

Remarkably, the one side that was ahead of the curve at the start of the 2022-24 cycle was PBKS, who's top eight struck at 121.14 in IPL 2022, way ahead of the rest. However, they were not keeping up with the pace with the number falling to 120 and 116.15 in the two seasons with Impact Player available resulting in bottom half finishes.

The two sides at the top of the table are the two finalists from IPL 2024 - KKR and SRH with first five balls strike rate for their top eight reading 145.51 and 135.27 respectively for the season. These were huge jumps for the two underperforming sides from the preceding three years and more so for KKR whose year-to-year rise saw a whopping 32.3% jump (111 in 2022 & 110 in 2023 to 145 in 2024). As far as SRH is concerned, the big impetus came from their opening batters - Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma. The first five balls strike rate for SRH openers shot through the roof from 110 in 2022 and 125 in 2023 to a barely believable 192 in 2024.

Change at the top

From all the accounts above, the biggest change in mindset with the Impact Player has come right at the top of the order and in the Powerplay phase. Openers are attacking 53.5% of their balls in their initial phase of the innings (first five balls faced) since 2023 compared to 45.5% in the preceding two seasons. Among those who opened at least ten times since 2023, Travis Head is at the top of the list with a FFB SR of 171 in IPL 2024 (he did not feature in 2023 edition) followed by Prithvi Shaw who strikes at 160. There is a big drop off after Shaw with Phil Salt at the third position striking at 145, closely followed by Yashasvi Jaiswal (142).

The FFB SR for openers in the Impact Player period read 116.86 and the percentage increase from the two previous years for them is 23.8%. There are four batters whose FFB SR and percentage increase across the two periods are above the league average - Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhishek Sharma, Faf du Plessis, and Mayank Agarwal.

The extra freedom offered by the Impact Sub has largely liberated Jaiswal whose FFB SR surged from 106.28 in 2021-22 to 142.22 since 2023 and this has not affected his consistency as his dismissal rate has remained largely around the same mark. Abhishek Sharma too has seen an increase in FFB SR but that has resulted in him getting dismissed far more frequently though it's a tradeoff that's now widely accepted. The other big mover is Du Plessis who is striking at 118 in his first five balls and has never got out in this phase in the last two editions combined - a far cry from his 2021-22 days where he stuck at 89.11 and averaged 21.83 off his first five balls.

The curious case of Sunil Narine

488 runs in 14 innings at a strike rate of 180.74. Sunil Narine wound the clock back at the top of the order to his glory days from 2017-18 and was the single biggest factor in KKR's title winning run in IPL 2024. In T20s in the year preceding IPL 2024, Narine averaged 10.06 and in the 10 months since he is averaging 8.33 either side of his magnum opus for KKR. Narine had an extraordinary amount of luck going his way during his golden run last season, with a high percentage of false shots (29.7%, the highest among top six batters) which was not proportional to the frequency of dismissals that usually follows false shots.

In the first five ball phase of his innings, Narine attacked more balls than any other opener in IPL 2024 (84.3%) but scored well under a run a ball (SR 93.54). The more attacking shots he played, he also had the highest false shot % for this phase clocking 45.3% but resulted only in two dismissals. The one closest to Narine in terms of false shot % is his opening partner Phil Salt at 44.2% but had a strike rate of 161.11 to show for.

Narine is likely to pair up with either Quinton de Kock or Rahmanullah Gurbaz at the top of the order and both of them find themselves at the bottom of the first five balls strike rate among openers since 2023 (104.28 and 98.11 respectively). KKR used the most number of opening combinations in 2022 and 2023 before settling with Narine and Salt in 2024 and they would desperately be hoping for the starting opening combination to stick as they set out for defending the title.

Dhoni finds his niche

MS Dhoni endured his worst seasons in IPL in 2021 and 2022 and the Impact Player rule has given his IPL career a new lease of life and a better role clarity. In 24 innings in 2021-22 period, he averaged 24.71 and struck at 117.29 - the latter quite low for someone who predominantly batted at #6 or lower. His first five balls SR in this period was only 93.45 citing he was a slow starter. He had played his last for India in 2019 and the sporadic appearances in IPL was his only outing in the middle and he needed time before launch, often a premium for batters down the order in T20s. In ten of these 24 innings, he walked out to the middle before the onset of death overs (the 16th over) which meant he probably was exposed to spin slightly more often than optimal. He faced spinners 32.7% of the deliveries within the first five ball phase and scored 57.14/100 balls in this phase.

Since the Impact Player inception, Dhoni is averaging 37.86 (inflated by 16 not outs) but more importantly he is striking at 203.85 from 24 innings. He faced his first ball after the 15th over in 23 of these 24 innings with the lone exception being the shortened chase in IPL 2023 final. The additional batter in the lineup meant his entry point is more optimized to his strengths, and he faced more than 81.8% of balls from seamers at the start of his innings (first five balls) across the last two seasons. Overall, Dhoni's first five balls SR more than doubled in the last two years compared to the previous two editions from 93.45 to 189.61, the latter being the best for anyone in this period.

The scatter plot above denotes the first five balls SR for all the batters to have played at least ten innings in each of the two periods (2021-22 and 2023-24). The ones at the bottom right corner of the chart are the big gainers from the Impact Player period while the ones on the top left are the ones who were ahead of the curve in the pre Impact Player era but struggled since. Alongside Dhoni, the others with over 50% increase in the first five balls SR are Nicholas Pooran, Rahul Tewatia, Rajat Patidar, Abhishek Sharma, and Shivam Dube. Narine, Liam Livingstone, Rahul Tripathi, and Rishabh Pant are the prominent names in the top left corner of the chart with Narine, Livingstone, and Pant among the five fastest starters in the 2021-22 period but has not been able to maintain the same for different individual reasons in the last two seasons.

The ones at the bottom left are the slow starters across both periods. KL Rahul, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Manish Pandey, Devdutt Padikkal, David Warner, and David Miller dwell in these areas. The ones at the top right corner are the fastest starters across both the two year periods. The most notable name in this corner is Prithvi Shaw - the only batter with a 140+ first five balls SR across both faces and is currently not signed with any franchises. Virat Kohli, Glenn Maxwell, Suryakumar Yadav, Rashid Khan, and Jitesh Sharma are amongst the fastest starters across both period with a 125+ SR in both periods.