The IPL 2025 kicks off on March 22 with Kolkata Knight Riders playing Royal Challengers Bengaluru. Word is that the BCCI has made some changes to allow teams to bring in replacement players under special circumstances.
Apparently, the BCCI told the 10 franchises about this already. Players can only be picked from the Registered Available Player Pool (RAPP). Team managers are saying they’ve never had to use this before.
This new rule is mainly about wicketkeepers. If a team’s regular keepers are all unavailable for a match, they can ask the BCCI for a special exception. The BCCI might allow them to bring in a short-term replacement keeper from outside their squad. This replacement can only play until one of the team’s regular keepers is ready to play again.
The rule also says that the team has to let the BCCI know as soon as one of their main keepers is able to play. Plus, if the unavailable keeper is a foreign player and the team already has their full of overseas players, the replacement can’t be a foreign player.
Here are the other replacement rules:
If a player gets a season-ending injury or illness, they can be replaced even if they’ve already played in a match, but only if:
- The injury or illness happens before or during the team’s 12th match.
- A BCCI-nominated doctor says the injury is season-ending (meaning the player won’t be fit to play until after the season).
- The player would have been available for the rest of the season if they weren’t injured.
- The injury means the player will miss the rest of the season’s matches.
