Substitutes in Cricket

[Majin]

Heard the commentators talking a little bit about this in the SA/Windies match earlier, just wondering what you guys thought about the issue.

Obviously at the moment the only thing the 12th man can do is field, personally I've always thought this was a bit daft, especially considering Test Cricket is one of the most gruelling sports around, and an injury to a bowler especially, batsman less so but still, can vastly affect the outcome of the match. I don't think it makes much sense to not be allowed to have cover for this, especially again in a 5 day game that is very physically and mentally demanding.

Now, I'm not saying substitutes should be introduced like football, for instance, where you can change at will. That could make too big an impression on the game if people started subbing bowlers better suited for the pitch in and out and stuff like that. For me, I would let teams pick a batting sub and a bowling sub, and if a batsman or bowlers gets injured during play, they can switch out for them and let them take up their roles, as opposed to just fielding. One of each might seem like a small number, but I think that way there is again less chance of like, getting an unfair advantage by preparing subs beforehand to suit the game. It'd make it better for teams to be able to carry on with a full bowling attack and also, in my opinion, better viewing for fans because I don't think anyone particularly enjoys watching a game get ruined by having one team weakened significantly and then subsequently give up or get deflated and change the play (not that this always happens, but it does sometimes.)

Anyway yeah, thoughts or ideas of your own would be appreciated.

 

[silentstriker]

Holy crap. In Test cricket? No way!

 

[Richard]

Heard the commentators talking a little bit about this in the SA/Windies match earlier

Yeah, me too.

just wondering what you guys thought about the issue.

Well, I think it's an awful idea TBH. There's absolutely no way you could impose a foolproof code, and invariably there'd be times it'd become 11 vs 12 (or, worse, 15 vs 10). The definitions "batsman" and "bowler" can never be terms that can be ingrained into the laws, there'll always be room for ambiguity. Anyway, how far do you go: do you go down to right-handers who use a top-hand grip only, or left-handers who play spin very well when the bowlers bowl over-the-wicket on a Tuesday?

I'd be far happier with more work and research into preventing injuries in cricket. Sure, you're never going to stop someone going over on his ankle () every now and then, but you can do a hell of a lot to reduce stresses and strains, and reduce the likelihood of and problems caused by injuries.

I've always hated injuries having any impact whatsoever on the game of cricket, hated it more than anything except bad Umpiring decisions doing so. And I want to see less of it, not only in matches but between matches.

 

[Majin]

Yeah but fitness has nothing to do with some injuries, just purely for example like Simon Jones shagging his knee when he was fielding in Aus. I'm not saying this SOMETHING THAT MUST BE DONE, it's just a thought of mine and I wanted to hear peoples reasons for or against having subs. And I agree, Test Cricket should be 11 v 11, which is why I think it is daft that teams have to bat with 10 men because someone is injured. I can't see a good reason for NOT allowing substitutes for injuries to keep the game even, just wondering if anyone had any.

Edit: I agree that's something you could never fit into law properly, but that's again why I would keep the terms very loose as it is, the captain should pick a batsman and bowler from their squad just as cover for injuries. Whether left or right handed or spin or whatever is again up to them, but I don't think it would affect things TOO much because there's not really any way they could guarantee who (if anybody) would be the one getting injured. And I do only mean like, game ending injuries, thought I should point that out. Not people coming out to have 3 overs bowling when one of the bowlers needs to go off the field to get his knee looked at or something.

 

[silentstriker]

Yeah but fitness has nothing to do with some injuries, just purely for example like Simon Jones shagging his knee when he was fielding in Aus. I'm not saying this SOMETHING THAT MUST BE DONE, it's just a thought of mine and I wanted to hear peoples reasons for or against having subs. And I agree, Test Cricket should be 11 v 11, which is why I think it is daft that teams have to bat with 10 men because someone is injured. I can't see a good reason for NOT allowing substitutes for injuries to keep the game even, just wondering if anyone had any.

Easy for a bowler to feign an injury and let a recognized batsman come in and bat for him.

In any case, leave Test cricket alone! All the tinkering can be done to ODIs.

 

[Richard]

Yeah but fitness has nothing to do with some injuries, just purely for example like Simon Jones shagging his knee when he was fielding in Aus. I'm not saying this SOMETHING THAT MUST BE DONE, it's just a thought of mine and I wanted to hear peoples reasons for or against having subs. And I agree, Test Cricket should be 11 v 11, which is why I think it is daft that teams have to bat with 10 men because someone is injured. I can't see a good reason for NOT allowing substitutes for injuries to keep the game even, just wondering if anyone had any.

That Jones injury could easily have been prevented. All it took was someone saying "don't go sliding carelessly on this outfield fellaz" and there - all danger removed.

The reason I have for substitutes not being allowed is that for every game it'll stop from becoming 10 vs 11, there are 200 or so it'll make into 12 vs 11. Or, worse, 15 vs 10.

 

[Richard]

In any case, leave Test cricket alone! All the tinkering can be done to ODIs.

Nah, do it in Twenty20s. They're designed for this sort of thing.

In any case, there are changes that can be made to Tests to make them better, I don't want those left un-done when they could be done. I just don't want changes that are going to ruin the game, like allowing substitutes would IMO.

 

[Majin]

Easy for a bowler to feign an injury and let a recognized batsman come in and bat for him.

In any case, leave Test cricket alone! All the tinkering can be done to ODIs.

I didn't mean anyone could be subbed for anyone, sorry, should have made it clearer. I meant the Batsman is subbed for the Batsman and the Bowler for a Bowler, no cases of "oh it's the 4th innings and one of our tailenders fell over and injured his elbow so we're sending in this batsman instead". It'd have to be an 8-11 for an 8-11, if you know what I mean.

And I wouldn't mind subs in any form, really. I don't mind either way, like I said it's not something I am fully adamant about, just a thought. xD

The reason I have for substitutes not being allowed is that for every game it'll stop from becoming 10 vs 11, there are 200 or so it'll make into 12 vs 11. Or, worse, 15 vs 10.

Not quite sure I understand how this works Rich, at least the 15 v 10 thing doesn't make sense to me, could you explain it please?

 

[Richard]

I can't actually see that it'd ever happen as in 15 vs 10 TBH, no team would ever be likely to go down to 10 men.

It'd happen on the premise you were able to pick 4 or 5 subs (let's say you only get 2, what happens if 1 of those gets injured?) and there'd always, I reckon, be a relatively easy way for players to, as ss says, feign injury. You'd never be able to conclusively prove an injury wasn't game-ending really. If a player can get away with this, teams could easily use 15 players in a match, while others might not manage it. So one team would essentially have 15 men, the other 12.

 

[NUFAN]

I didn't mean anyone could be subbed for anyone, sorry, should have made it clearer. I meant the Batsman is subbed for the Batsman and the Bowler for a Bowler, no cases of "oh it's the 4th innings and one of our tailenders fell over and injured his elbow so we're sending in this batsman instead". It'd have to be an 8-11 for an 8-11, if you know what I mean.

Crazy to police. So Australia could replace the injured Glenn McGrath with Ashley Noffke if we needed to make a few runs in the 4th innings of a test?

Not a good idea.

 

[Goughy]

For Test the idea is out of the question. Its a team game and a team is a unit of 11 players.

If someone gets hurt, the rest of the component parts have to make up for that loss.

I couldnt think of anything worse than in the 4th innings a bowler is replaced with a batsman or if a basman is hit in the head and cant continue then a sub an be made etc.

Also, team composition and selection is one of the fascinating aspects of Test cricket. Allowing subs changes this important and traditional aspect.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

That Jones injury could easily have been prevented.

Not all injuries are avoidable by the player.

 

[Majin]

Crazy to police. So Australia could replace the injured Glenn McGrath with Ashley Noffke if we needed to make a few runs in the 4th innings of a test?

Not a good idea.

it's dealing with intangibles, though. That's mainly why I would personally restrict it to one bowler and one batsman sub each. For instance, let me just run through a hypothetical situation here:

Let's say Australia have decided to go with an attack of Lee, Johnson, Clark and MacGill, with Hogg as a substitute bowler, because they think they can use him in the 4th innings instead of Clark because he can bat well. Wouldn't that just be an incredibly shortsighted reason to pick him? What happens, say, if they were playing on a pace bowlers dream pitch (not that many of those exist at the moment, but humour me) and Lee goes down injured in his opening spell on day one? Then, instead of having someone like Tait, for instance, who would have been ideal fast bowling cover on a pitch designed for his type, they would end up with a spinner who may well turn out to be totally ineffective just because they wanted to try and fake an injury to gain an advantage in the 4th innings batting. No one can predict when someone will or won't get injured, and they can't predict who it would be either, so trying to pick substitutes to gain advantage like that would be risky business, when the idea would be to keep them on an even ground should something go wrong.

Also, maybe it's just me being naive, but I don't really think any of the teams would try to do something like that anyway. You used Australia as an example, but if you cast your mind back to the Ashes 05 and how furious Ponting and outspoken the Aussies were about England's use of substitute fielders, why then would this team suddenly start trying to fake injuries to gain a boosted batting line up? There's a lot said about sportsmanship in cricket and "doing things in the spirit of the game", and I don't personally think anyone would do anything dire to work around the rules like that, but that's probably again me being naive. (I always give the benefit of the doubt to players in cases where "cheating" is thrown around, unless it is something that can be fully proven, Rashid Latif dire claimed catch for instance. It's just the way I am.)

 

[sledger]

Substitutes in any form of cricket = very bad idea for me, half the skill of the game is picking the correct side for the correct conditions, adding the option of a substitution would devalue this, not to mention give a huge advantage to whichever side wins the toss.

 

[pup11]

I think this rule could a be good one for the game if used properly, super-sub sucked big time because it was complicated and gave one team an unfair advantage over the other.
I think one substitution should be allowed in every Odi game and the teams shouldn't be made to name their substitution at the toss and they should be given the liberty to send any one player from their bench at any point of the game, unlike the super-sub rule where you were required to name your at the toss.
Btw i would not tolerate any tinkering with test cricket.

 

[Richard]

Not all injuries are avoidable by the player.

Read the rest of my post. Jones was not to know about the surface; someone, somewhere would have done, and someone should have told him to take great care when sliding on the surface with spikes - or else simply not do it.

Injuries caused by gross negligance of others angers me greatly at the best of times. Injuries that bad, it's worse still.

 

[Richard]

it's dealing with intangibles, though. That's mainly why I would personally restrict it to one bowler and one batsman sub each. For instance, let me just run through a hypothetical situation here:

Let's say Australia have decided to go with an attack of Lee, Johnson, Clark and MacGill, with Hogg as a substitute bowler, because they think they can use him in the 4th innings instead of Clark because he can bat well. Wouldn't that just be an incredibly shortsighted reason to pick him? What happens, say, if they were playing on a pace bowlers dream pitch (not that many of those exist at the moment, but humour me) and Lee goes down injured in his opening spell on day one? Then, instead of having someone like Tait, for instance, who would have been ideal fast bowling cover on a pitch designed for his type, they would end up with a spinner who may well turn out to be totally ineffective just because they wanted to try and fake an injury to gain an advantage in the 4th innings batting. No one can predict when someone will or won't get injured, and they can't predict who it would be either, so trying to pick substitutes to gain advantage like that would be risky business, when the idea would be to keep them on an even ground should something go wrong.

Also, maybe it's just me being naive, but I don't really think any of the teams would try to do something like that anyway. You used Australia as an example, but if you cast your mind back to the Ashes 05 and how furious Ponting and outspoken the Aussies were about England's use of substitute fielders, why then would this team suddenly start trying to fake injuries to gain a boosted batting line up? There's a lot said about sportsmanship in cricket and "doing things in the spirit of the game", and I don't personally think anyone would do anything dire to work around the rules like that, but that's probably again me being naive. (I always give the benefit of the doubt to players in cases where "cheating" is thrown around, unless it is something that can be fully proven, Rashid Latif dire claimed catch for instance. It's just the way I am.)

The fact that batsmen don't walk completely contradicts that. Cricketers are funny types, getting on their high-horses about sportsmanship in some areas and exploiting the rules to the hilt in others.

Even if it didn't happen every game, I still reckon it'd happen often enough.

 

[Majin]

Yeah but the thing is, the onus isn't on the batsman to walk if he edges it. It's the umpires job to give players out, if the Batsman chooses to walk then that's great, and I respect players who do it, but equally there is really no grounds for complaint if he doesn't. It's the umpires fault for not giving it out imho. We've all seen players get given horrific decisions by umpires and have to leave when they weren't out, so I don't really see not walking when not being given out as a terrible sin. Whereas faking an injury to switch the team around would just be plain cheating.

 

[Richard]

Would both be plain cheating to my mind, but the only way to find-out fo sho what'd happen would be to try it - and because of horror at what might happen if it was tried, I'd be happier if it weren't.