'Impact Player' not ideal for coaches but fans have last say: Ricky Ponting

New Delhi, Apr 19 (PTI) The Impact Player rule in IPL might be hampering the growth of all-rounders but Delhi Capitals head coach Ricky Ponting said on Friday that fans should be able to decide on the future of this contentious system.

Ponting has never been a strong advocate of the Impact Player and the debate gained momentum after Rohit Sharma in a recent YouTube podcast said that he is not a "fan of the rule" as it hurts development of Indian all-rounders.

“Look, I think, I read some really, really interesting answers from Rohit Sharma on this yesterday. This Impact Player is taking the all-rounders out of the game a little bit,” Ponting said ahead of DC’s match against Sunrisers Hyderabad here on Saturday.

“You know you can play your specialist batsman down till No. 8. pretty much. But look, I think for a coach and for the players, it's probably not ideal, but I think you know a lot of what this game tries to do is to entertain people," Ponting explained his point of view.

“The T20 game is an entertainment package and it's probably better asking the spectator what they think about the impact player, because if everyone is loving the fact that teams are making, you know, 220 up to 250 in a lot of the games, and the spectators like seeing it, then it should stay.

“But if the spectators aren't liking it as much, then there's no reason why I couldn't go back to the old,” he added.

"Warner is around 85 to 90% fit” ======================== David Warner, who missed the last match due to a knuckle injury, was seen batting at the nets and also hit some balls into the stands while facing throwdowns.

Ponting said he is nearly 85 to 90% fit.

“David did a fitness test on game day in which he got close. He's probably sort of 85 or 90% a couple days ago. We'd expect that there would be a little bit more improvement from him today.

“But he will have to do a lot of batting today against some fast bowling stuff to make sure that the pain is not there anymore,” Ponting replied to a query from PTI.

The coach was happy with the pitch on which DC will play its first home game.

“A lot more grass on the entire square than we used to see here. You know, this is the main reason that we moved away from those couple of games at the back of WPL.

“We wanted to ensure that the wickets could potentially play a bit better than they have done for us.” PTI