Ahead of the Indian Premier League 2026 season, Akshar Patel has expressed his dissatisfaction with the impact player rule, admitting that he is not personally a fan of the rule. The Delhi Capitals skipper believes that this rule devalues all-rounders in the tournament, which begins on March 28.Introduced in 2023, the impact player role allows teams to bring in a specialist batsman or bowler as a substitute during a match. Axar, however, feels that it has changed the composition of the team significantly. “I don’t like the rule, to be honest, because I’m an all-rounder. Earlier, you used to pick an all-rounder for batting and bowling.
“But because of this principle, the team management thinks about a particular batsman or bowler, ‘Why do we need an all-rounder?’ As I am an all-rounder, I don’t like this rule. At the same time, rules are rules and we need to follow them. From a personal perspective though, I don’t like the rule,” he said during a preseason press conference.Delhi Capitals will begin their IPL 2026 campaign on April 1 against Lucknow Supergiants at the Ekana Cricket Stadium. This is not the first time Aksar has raised concerns about the rule. Back in 2024, when he served as vice-captain, he mentioned that the impact player rule affected his batting position.Despite maintaining a career IPL economy rate of 7.3, Axar faced a difficult bowling season in 2025, his least impact since joining Delhi in 2019. He gave away runs at a rate of 8.5 per over and took only five wickets in 11 innings. However, he clarified that his struggles were due to a finger injury sustained during India’s successful 2025 campaign. Champions Trophy Campaign, not impact player principle.“The 2025 Champions Trophy was just before the IPL. During CT, I got a cut on my spinner finger: when I was bowling, because of the seam of the ball, it kept getting cut. It turned into a deep cut. Because of this, I couldn’t put pressure and spin on the ball.“I was bowling less because of that and only where needed and thinking of saving my finger. After seven matches, when my finger healed, I started bowling again. It was not because of the impact player rule,” he explained.While his bowling numbers dipped, Aksar made up for it with the bat in 2025, enjoying one of his most productive IPL seasons. He scored 263 runs at a strike rate of 158 in 11 innings, including four scores above 30, and maintained a strike rate of 159 in the middle overs to give Delhi the momentum.
