IPL 2024: Ricky Ponting Gets Furious Over Extra Foreign Player Fielded By Rajasthan Royals - Here’s What Happened!

Rajasthan Royals faced Delhi Capitals in Match 9 of the Indian Premier League 2024 season at Sawai Mansingh Stadium, Jaipur on Thursday. While DC started well after opting to bowl first, Riyan Parag stole the limelight after a top-order collapse. But one more aspect drew attention and left DC Head Coach Ricky Ponting fuming from the dugout. Ponting was angry when Rovman Powell took the field, as it meant that Rajasthan now had five foreign players, violating the IPL's rules and regulations. The other players who took part for the Royals were Jos Buttler, Trent Boult, Nandre Burger, Shimran Hetmeyer, who was substituted, and Powell, who turned out to be the fifth foreigner. Let's take a look at what the Indian Premier League Overseas Player Rule says.

Ricky Ponting livid - Here's what the Overseas Player Rule says

The Indian Premier League permits only four overseas players in the playing XI and on the field. The rule stayed the same even after the impact player rule became the norm from the last season. However, in Match 9 of the IPL 2024 season, the former captain of Australia and Head Coach of DC Ricky Ponting was furious when Rajasthan Royals used an additional overseas player on the field. The Royals had fielded a total of five players as Delhi Capitals were chasing the target.

RULE 1.2.5: 

"Each team may not name more than 4 Overseas players (as defined in the IPL Player Regulations) in its starting eleven for any match."

RULE 1.2.6:

"A team may not have more than 4 Overseas players on the field of play at any time during any match. Thus, if the team names a maximum of 4 Overseas players in its starting XI, an Overseas player may only take the field as a substitute fielder if the player that he is replacing is an Overseas player. If the team names less than 4 Overseas players in its starting XI, Overseas players may only enter the field of play as substitute fielders to the extent that by doing so, they do not take the total number of overseas players representing that team on the field to more than 4."

Rajasthan Royals named three players in the starting lineup: Jos Buttler, Shimron Hetmyer, and Trent Boult. In the second innings, Nandre Burger came in as the Impact sub, and Rovman Powell came in as a substitute fielder. Since Hetmeyer was substituted and did not field during the second innings, only four of RR's overseas players were on the pitch. In the end, Sandeep Sharma and Avesh Khan nailed their yorkers and kept making the batters hit into the bigger boundary. Rajasthan Royals went on to win the game by 12 runs to continue the "Home Team" trend.