Time to reconsider the use of substitutes in cricket

Umpire Steve Davis signals the supersub as Australia replace Brett Dorey with Brad Hogg as Ricky Ponting (L) and Andrew Symonds of Australia look on during game five of the VB Series between Australia and Sri Lanka played at the Sydney Cricket Ground on January 22, 2006 in Sydney, Australia.

I was recently watching a football game on television between Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur at Stamford Bridge. The score was 0-0 at half-time, and Chelsea looked devoid of inspiration in the 1^st half. Jose Mourinho, the Chelsea manager, known for his sharp tactical skills, brought on Oscar instead of Frank Lampard at half-time, and the complexion of the game changed instantly. Oscar provided Chelsea the much-needed attacking verve, which was missing in the 1^st half, and Chelsea ended up winning the game 4-0. I became curious to find out whether substitutions were an intrinsic part of the beautiful game. I found out, to my surprise, that substitutions in the English Football League were permitted only from the 1965/66 season and that, too, strictly in case of injuries. Tactical substitutions were allowed from the 1967/68 season, and it has remained an integral part of football ever since.

With that being the case, why is it that cricket has never really entertained serious thoughts of tactical substitutions? Most other major team sports like football, basketball, baseball and hockey have been receptive towards the idea of tactical substitutes, and I think it has enhanced those sports.

The Cricket Committee of the International Cricket Council (ICC), the sport’s governing body, had introduced a 10-month trial in July 2005 to use tactical substitutions in One-Day Internationals. The trial, however, was jettisoned in March 2006, way too early in my opinion, as a result of criticism from players and umpires alike. According to that rule, the twelfth man would act as a ‘Supersub’, able to come on and replace any player, taking over the substituted player’s batting and bowling duties. The idea was shelved in a matter of a few months because of the fact that, in many instances, the team that lost the toss derived absolutely no benefit from the ruling. The ill-conceived Supersub rule led to the fate of one-day matches being decided on the basis of luck rather than skill, and hence the ICC Cricket Committee decided to do away with the use of tactical substitutes.

The ICC, in recent years, has constantly tinkered with rules in One-Day International cricket like bringing in two new balls, abolition of the bowling powerplay and compelling the batting side to take the batting powerplay within the 40^th over: a sign that the Board isn’t quite content with the direction that one-day cricket is heading in. The rules have been tweaked, time and again, in a bid to make the format more appealing. If that is what the ICC is striving towards, I think it will be worth considering bringing back the Supersub practice once again. It will add another dimension to the one-day game, besides giving more flexibility to the captains in terms of their combinations.

The experiment didn’t work the way the ICC would’ve hoped when it was introduced first, as both the captains had to nominate their Supersubs prior to the toss: this meant that the team that won the toss could utilize their Supersub effectively, while the team that loses the toss would feel hard done-by. To address the problem of imbalance, the ICC could allow the teams to nominate their Supersubs after the toss. The captains can exchange their designated playing XIs during the toss as usual, but they should be allowed the liberty of naming their substitute based on the outcome of the toss.

Introducing the Supersub rule again could reignite ODIs, thereby engendering more interest amongst the viewers. The 50-overs format has been struggling to gain attention in comparison to the other forms of the game due to the primacy of Test cricket and the excitement that T20 cricket offers. With less than 12 months left for the 2015 ODI World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, a move like this could just do the trick for the format.

It’s not just about bringing the Supersub back into one-day cricket; the game’s administrators and lawmakers should also consider allowing genuinely injured players to be replaced by substitutes, who can take up both the batting and bowling duties of the replaced player for the rest of the match in all formats of the game. Law 2.3 states that “a substitute shall not be allowed to bat, bowl or act as wicket-keeper”. This is a law which has existed from time immemorial, but what prevents it from being subject to change?

Take the case of JP Duminy in the Test match between Australia and South Africa at Brisbane in November 2012. The southpaw, while warming-down with the rest of the team after the completion of the 1^st day’s play, unfortunately ruptured his Achilles tendon, leading to him taking no further part in the Test. As a result, the South Africans were severely handicapped for the rest of the contest. With such instances not rare any more, it is hard to fathom why the team afflicted shouldn’t be allowed to replace their injured player with a like-for-like replacement.

Initially, football, a sport with age-old traditions that originated even before cricket, was also reluctant to use substitutes for both tactical purposes and injured players. The men who matter in the world of football, though, eventually came around to the idea of substitutions, and I think it is time cricket does the same, too.