Test cricket could get AFL-style tactical subs as soon as next year

Australian cricket's revolutionary experiment with injury substitutes in the Sheffield Shield will allow for the provision of an AFL-style tactical sub for the opposition, to ensure that the groundbreaking rule is not manipulated.

Cricket Australia has confirmed to this masthead that the experimental playing condition is currently being written up after weeks of consultation with state teams, the Australian Cricketers Association and the International Cricket Council.

It will be trialled over the first five rounds of the Shield that begins on Saturday, with the option of extension for the whole season.

If successful, there is a strong chance the rule will be adopted for Test matches next year. India is conducting a trial of a more limited injury sub-rule – allowing only for external injuries and without a tactical sub – during its domestic season.

The ICC had initially placed far more restrictions on what kind of injury subs rule may be trialled, before relaxing their stance to allow for the current experiment without threatening the Shield's first-class status.

The introduction of the injury sub, which must be decided on before the start of day three of a Shield game, was always going to be contentious with traditionalists, but the addition of a reciprocal sub for the opposition takes the trial even further into the unknown.

England captain Ben Stokes, who is touring Australia this summer for the Ashes, has been the most vocal opponent of the idea.

“It’s absolutely ridiculous that there’s a conversation around an injury replacement,” Stokes said during this year's series against India. “There would just be too many loopholes for teams to be able to go through.

“You pick your eleven for a game; injuries are part of the game. I completely understand the concussion replacement; player welfare, and player safety. But I think the conversation should just honestly stop around injury replacements because if you stick me in an MRI scanner, I could get someone else in straightaway.

“If you stick anyone else with an MRI scanner, a bowler is going to show, ‘Oh yeah, you’ve got a bit of inflammation around your knee. Oh sweet, we can get another fresh bowler in’. I just think that conversation should be shut down and stopped.”

However there are plenty of advocates for the move, not the least sport science and medical experts in the game who believe that injury mitigation should be a greater priority to extend the careers of players, particularly pace bowlers.

“We are the only team sport that does this,” former England captain Michael Vaughan wrote in The Telegraph earlier this year. “What we are doing at the moment is intentionally depleting a contest by making one of the teams effectively play with ten men for four days of the match, on the back of bad luck.

“I have felt for many years that Test cricket should introduce substitutes for injuries that are clear and obvious, like we have seen with Rishabh Pant in the fourth Test at Old Trafford.”

Under the trial, Shield teams will get the option of making one “like-for-like” injury substitution per match, as distinct from the unlimited provision for concussion subs.

The “injury” can be any kind of physical problem picked up during play, in warm-ups or off the field. Illness is also a valid reason to make the substitution.

The match referee will determine whether the request is legitimate, and may also restrict the replacement player's role, forbidding them from bowling if, for example, the player they are replacing is a batter only.

As a quid pro quo, the opposing team can then choose to make a tactical substitution in response, also by the end of day two of the game.

Once they have been substituted, the injured or ill player must serve a mandatory 12-day stand down period, during which they cannot play again. The 12 days start from the day after the scheduled second day of the match.

Teams will still only be allowed to travel with squads of 12 for Shield games, with the 12th player meant to be a fast bowler, due to the statistical likelihood that most injuries will take place to fast bowlers.

CA statistics show that last summer’s Shield featured eight instances where a player was injured during a game, and on six occasions the substitute rule would have come into effect because the player had been injured on the first two days of a game. Six of those injured were fast bowlers.

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