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The Rule Dropped Brar a Spot
Teams · Punjab Kings
Ponting's Punjab still has a left-arm spinner. The XI often does not. Brar named the Impact Player rule as the reason he spent IPL 2026 on the bench.
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NEWS / The Rule Dropped Brar a Spot
Cricbuzz put Harpreet Brar on its IPL Off-season desk on 2 September. The Punjab Kings left-arm spinner did not talk in slogans. He said the Impact Player rule had dropped him one spot further down the order. If he plays, only Arshdeep Singh and Yuzvendra Chahal sit after him. Marco Jansen bats. Azmatullah Omarzai goes above him. That is a named IPL XI, not a vibe.
He played two matches in IPL 2026 after eight in 2025. Against Rajasthan Royals he went 4-0-25-0. Against Royal Challengers Bengaluru he took Jacob Bethell and Devdutt Padikkal. Then the combination closed. Sportskeeda and Prabhat Khabar ran the same quotes the same day. Cricbuzz's own timeline put the Gill wishlist in front of 27,000 views before breakfast.
The other sentence in the interview is the one yellow and red accounts will clip. After Virat Kohli, Brar said, there is no batter whose wicket carries that aura. He still has not dismissed Shubman Gill in the IPL. He has bowled 28 balls at him. For three or four years, whenever Punjab play Gill, Brar is not in the eleven. He wishes the Impact Player rule stops. He wants to play.
Why it matters
This is not a generic moan about T20. Brar was a regular for Punjab in 2023 and 2024 even with the extra player on the card. Then the overseas all-rounder pile arrived: Jansen, Stoinis, Omarzai. Fifty-one IPL games, 37 wickets, economy under eight. The franchise still retained him. Retention without a shirt is a press release.
Punjab started IPL 2026 with seven wins and finished fifth. Ricky Ponting and Shreyas Iyer still run the room. The BCCI has already written to all ten clubs asking for Impact Player feedback before IPL 2027. Brar is the first Punjab voice on the record who is not a captain or a coach. He is the man the rule actually sits on.
RS9 IPL analysis
Call the rule a 12-a-side toy if you like. In Mohali it is a batting extra that eats the specialist spinner. Ponting can keep stacking all-rounders. Iyer can keep finishing chases. None of that puts Brar in the first eleven when Gill walks out. A left-arm fingerspinner who beats both hands is supposed to be the answer to this league. Punjab used him as a spare tyre.
The BCCI poll of franchises will not quote this interview. Owners like the extra batter. Captains like the extra batter. The collateral is a 30-year-old who has done eight IPL winters and still packs for two games. If the board keeps the rule, Brar's 2027 is already written: another camp, another bench, another quote about the team coming first. That sentence is loyalty. It is also a surrender.
Gill is the punchline and the evidence. Twenty-eight balls, no wicket, because the match-ups never happen. You cannot hunt the India captain from the dugout. Punjab sold a spin option and then bought three men who bat above him. That is not balance. That is a spreadsheet with a human cost.
What to watch next
The next honest documents are Punjab's 2027 combination sheet and the BCCI's franchise replies on the Impact Player rule. If Jansen, Stoinis and Omarzai still crowd the eleven, Brar's interview was a goodbye with better lighting. If the rule dies, he gets a run at Gill. Until then the only IPL spinner talking on the record has already told you who the rule is for.