IPL 2023: Predicting the impact players for each team

The new season of the Indian Premier League is upon us and the fans are already hyped up for the 2023 edition of the biggest cricket carnival on the planet. The 16th edition of the IPL will begin on Friday, the 31st of March, and it will return to the home and away format. While the IPL is never short of excitement, the upcoming season will get even more exciting courtesy of the new ‘Impact Player’ rule.

The Impact Player is bound to change the dynamics of the tournament as the teams will now have to do more brainstorming regarding their strategies, playing XI, and tactics. The new rule will definitely add some more flavour to the competition. Now, many of you must be wondering about this Impact Player rule. What is it?

The BCCI recently implemented this rule in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy successfully. As per the rule, the two teams will have to name four substitute players at the toss. Later, they could use one of those four players as the impact player during the game. The impact player must be an Indian player unless the team has only three or fewer overseas players in the playing XI. It is more like the substitute player rule in football but here only one player out of the nominated four could be called in.

It will allow the game to be tactically flexible as the teams will now focus on player match-ups as well. Hence, in this post, we will try to predict the impact players for all franchises in the IPL 2023.

Chennai Super Kings

The four-time champions failed to get off the blocks last season as they could not reach the playoffs and finished ninth in the points table. It was a rather forgetful season for the Yellow Army and they will be eager to bounce back this season.

CSK will return to their home ground at Chepauk this season and it won’t be a surprise if MS Dhoni tries the leggie Prashant Solanki as the impact player. The Chennai-based franchise is also likely to Simarjeet Singh and Tushar Deshpande if their bowlers go for extra runs.

Meanwhile, they could also look towards the all-round option of Rajvardhan Hangargekar, who is capable of scoring some lusty blows at the death. At the same time, batting could be difficult at the Chepauk and they have Ajinkya Rahane if they look to bolster their batting unit.

Impact Players: Prashant Solanki, Simarjeet Singh, Tushar Deshpande, Ajinkya Rahane