WATCH: Brain Lara - “Impact Player rule allows us to look at specialists”

Harry Brook benefitted from the newly-introduced Impact Player rule as Sunrisers Hyderabad picked the England batter for Rs 13.25 crore at the IPL auction in Kochi on Friday.

Harry Brook was signed by SRH for Rs 13.25 crore at the IPL auction in Kochi on Friday. Brook had entered the auction at a base price of Rs 1.5 crore.

Starting with IPL 2023 - as chairman Arun Dhumal described “innovation being the backbone of IPL” - the tournament will see each team being allowed to use an Impact Player for all the games. The substitute player, primarily an Indian except when a team fields less than four foreigners, can be introduced at any point during a game.

Harry Brook benefitted as a result with Sunrisers going for the England batter to the hilt.

“It allows us to look at specialists. Instead of looking at an allrounder, we can now look at replacing a bowler with a batter. That gives us a little bit of flexibility in picking specialists for each spot,” said Brian Lara, the Sunrisers Hyderabad head coach. - Amol Karhadkar