The much-awaited Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 is just around the corner and will commence from March 31. The first match of the league will be played between defending champions Gujarat Titans (GT) and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) at the Narendra Modi Cricket Stadium in Ahmedabad.
As before, a total of ten teams would be seen participating in the biggest and richest cricket league of the world. However, the Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) has made a few changes to the rules and the format of the IPL 2023.
The Indian board has restored the home and away arrangement of the matches for the 16th edition of IPL and divided the ten teams into two groups of five. Every team will play 14 league-stage matches, including seven home and seven away games. The IPL 2023 will be held across 12 venues over 52 days.
Let’s have a look at the other major changes made by BCCI for the marquee event:
1) Decision review system for wide and no balls
Players can now challenge the wide and no-ball decisions of the umpires using the Decision Review System (DRS). The Women’s Premier League (WPL) 2023 became the first tournament to introduce the rule, and now IPL will also see it being implemented in their 16th edition. In the WPL opener, Mumbai Indians captain Harmanpreet Kaur used a review to challenge a wide call by the umpire and became the first skipper to avail the benefit.
2) The ‘Impact Player’ Rule
BCCI has also added a new ‘Impact Player’ rule in the IPL 2023 that allows every team to replace one of their on-field players with any of the four substitutes at any moment of the match. However, the replaced player will no longer be able to participate further in the match, not even as a substitute fielder.
Notably, if a team names four foreign players in their playing eleven, then the impact player can only be an Indian.
