Cricinfo - Blogs - Rob's Lobs - When substitution adds up

Pinch-hitters and relief pitchers have long been part of baseball. It is now more than 40 years since the mandarins of English soccer, eventually softening after a string of FA Cup finals ruined by sides being reduced to 10 fit players, bowed to the principles of commonsense and permitted the use of substitutes. Three years later, in 1969, international rugby union, whose only passable alibi had been its supposed “amateur” status, followed suit by adopting what was known, amusingly, as “the Australian dispensation rule”. Mind you, by way of distancing themselves from that grotty, profoundly oiky, round-ball nonsense, the rugger-buggers did insist on the term “replacements”, a distinction that persists to this day. And still cricket, the most time-consuming of games, stubbornly, crassly, resists.

Instances where an injury has affected the tide of a Test do not spring all that readily to mind, I confess. Those five “absent hurt” Indians at Sabina Park in 1976; Ray Illingworth and Don Bradman falling foul of the footholds while bowling at The Oval, in 1972 and 1938 respectively; Terry Alderman coming off second-best after rugby-tackling an invading “fan” at Perth in 1982; a be-slinged Colin Cowdrey padding gingerly down the Lord’s pavilion steps for that goose-bumping climax against Frank Worrell’s West Indies in 1963. By the same token, how many hundreds of times has a bowler bowled half-fit, or a batsman taken guard with a busted finger?

The irony is two-fold. For one, it is the shorter form of the game that has experimented with fully-fledged replacements. For another, cricket’s statutes are littered with references to substitutes. However, while the 12th man is a time-honoured concession – if only to the need for refreshment, glove changes and curt messages from skipper and/or bookie - it took centuries before he was even entitled to field in the slips. Only by special dispensation [the Anglo-New Zealand dispensation?] were Bob Taylor and Bobby Parks permitted to keep wicket in Bruce French’s stead at Lord’s in 1986. For heaven’s sake, even when the 12th man does manage to secure a scorecard entry, he is credited, merely, generically and demeaningly, as “sub”.

India were lucky in Adelaide last month. Having cocked a snook at fashion by picking five specialist bowlers, RP Singh’s early exit with hamstring problems was not the blow it might normally have been, but they did fail to secure a first-innings lead after exceeding 500. Had RP been fit to bowl the 23 overs sent down by Tendulkar, Sehwag and Ganguly, in addition to the four to which he was confined, his strike-rate suggests he might have taken three wickets. More importantly perhaps, while I do not know whether he would have been fit to bat in the second innings had he been required to do so (thank heavens for Sehwag!), the very idea that a team has to bat a man or more short in the event of injury offends all notions of fair play.

And yes, I can hear the harrumphing: what if players feign injury in order to allow tactical substitutions? Well, they shouldn’t have to. What, pray, is wrong with tactical substitutions? You don’t have to be Stephen Hawking to work out that, even in a non-contact sport, the longer a game lasts, the better the chance of 1) one or more players losing form; 2) the opposition’s form and tactics mocking your selection, or 3) the weather compelling a change of approach. Flexibility on this front can only make the game a better spectacle, rewarding quality rather than luck. It will also enhance the prospects for natural justice. Hands up those who crave neither.

So, please David Morgan, sir, make it one of your first orders of business, when you take over as ICC head honcho, to address this severe and blatant shortcoming. Stamp your foot if you wish, and bang a few heads together if you must, but I entreat you to do your level best to persuade your colleagues that teams should be entitled to select a squad of substitutes for every Test, with each member permitted to bat, bowl or even mind the stumps. You know it makes sense.

Besides, consider the wider context if we extend this principle to other realms of the game. Just imagine what difference a substitution might have made to one of the most controversial decisions of recent times. As soon as it became apparent, earlier this week, that Justice John Hansen, curiously, had not been fully apprised of Harbhajan Singh’s previous Code of Conduct breaches, he could have been whisked off and replaced by someone bearing less resemblance to a puppet.

Rob, you forgot Nasim-ul-Ghani's cracked finger in the Test where Sir Garfield Sobers scored 365 not out.

To my mind you're advocating throwing out the statistics of 130 years of Test cricket.

And that cheapens the game.

We have had 130 years of injuries and poor umpiring decisions. We've had Fazal Mahmood and Pakistani batsmen benefitting from Pakistani groundsmen tightening or loosening between Innings the matting pitches on which Pakistan played their home Tests in the early days of their Test status.

But it's only now that we see commentators calling for the rules of the last 130 years to be scrapped. Because India lost in Sydney. The poor darlings.

I've reached my own conclusion about what that says about sportsmanship in the countries involved.

Like any idea, this one needs polishing. I am amused at the extreme responses in the blogs above. One would have hoped for a more civil conversation about a technical issue if one couldn't expect one on the Sydney controversies. "dave" in particular disappoints with his rabid outlook. Rob Steen doesn't appear to be an Indian, much less an Indian "moaner". Rob's idea combined with limiting to 3 substitutions, and a "like for like" substitution might make things interesting. I.e, bowler for bowler, batsman for batsman, all-rounder for all-rounder. Teams with more depth would benefit - example a better player of spin could replace a batsman in the second innings, or a spinner could replace a fast bowler. You would then always get the best of two nations competing, making for a higher quality of cricket.
I'm not saying this is enough polishing of the idea, but merely adding some ostensibly rational thoughts to an intelligent debate. More intelligent and constructive criticism could help.

Most of the objections here can easily be worked out with rules limiting the number of and or type of players on the reserve bench. Eg each team is allowed a recognized batsman, bowler and allrounder.

However the real problem with this idea is that the teams that benefit will be those with greater depth in their player base - normally those teams already winning more often than not. For instance, Australia, anybody notice than most of the time Australia cannot play one of it's normal 11 that someone steps in and does the job almost as well as the player he replaces (Perth test match excluded, a rare exception).

Any one who watches any sport that allows either unlimited substitutions or tactical one's knows that you end up rewarding the stronger sides more than the weaker ones therefore making the contest more one sided.

It is a lot easier to find 11 players up to international standard than 14,15 or 16, hell some teams only have 6 or 7 player of international standard as it is!

Herman De Wael's comment is the precise answer. All team sports (barring NFL) have subs that must play both sides of the field. Subbing in a striker in soccer is fine for strengthening your attack, but he will need to defend as well, or the team will suffer next time the opposition attacks.
When super-subs were thought up there WAS one idea that I liked (so obviously it was never used). Each team member is coded as to his specialty (bowler, batsman, allrounder or wk). Each team can have 5 subs ready and can only sub in like for like. So, you can sub in a bowler for a bowler, allrounder for allrounder etc. This does give you some food for thought. If you tried out a fast bowler, but it seems a spinner will be more useful - you can switch one bowler for another.
In tests this should be allowed only in the first innings, and only once.
I do agree that subs for injuries should be allowed, but some rules must be made on who decides how injured the player is.

Dave, Ausssies calling anybody else cheats after Sydney is worse than a pot calling a kettle black.
Fact of life is you are world champions not on cricketing merit, but because ICC do not want see India / Pakistan bt Australia in a scorebook. Look at ICC's discrimination favouring you guys - Indian Harbhajan Singh penalised for using abusive language on the field of play, no action against Australian Brad Hogg. Even after ICC knows that Harbhajan's action, unlike Brad's was in response to provocation from Andrew Symonds ! A whole series of alleged human errors from umpires, some of which are such that there is sufficient reason to question at least the sanity if not integrity of the individual committing the error. ICC do not want to get rid of the individuals committing these.
I have challenged ICC to publish "human errors" of umpires with effect. ICC is scared of publishing because they know it will show the world how they are misusing it to keep Ind/Pak down.

John Vane; study statistics before you make such assertions. The probability distribution of umpires' errors will follow a statistically defined distribution; the most ideal of which would be the normal distribution. In the ideal normal distribution, most instances do NOT include "evening out". Therefore, it is as someone once said: "Do not assume that it will even out until someone mathematically proves that it does ...." Once again, your argument that it evens out is utter nonsense pending the arrival of some miraculous mathematical proof that contradicts the current theoretical foundations of statistics.

Rob, I am about to make some outrageous statements, but I am being serious, believe it or not. I support substitutions in cricket, American Football style where all players are part of a special team, say batting, bowling or fielding. Furthermore, I think that one batsman should be allowed to bat ten times in an innings. Also, the batsman should be allowed to change ends.

b. lara:

My suggestion was NOT sarcastic, because I DO believe in using American Football/Ice Hockey style substitution rules in cricket thus creating special teams of batsmen, bowlers and fielders. Doesn't bother me one bit. That said, I also support some of the "old school" "rules." For example, I support timeless tests like the good old days where you just kept playing until all four innings were closed. Much higher percentages could then be achieved for tests yielding decisive results. I also support going back to the days when bodyline bowling and leg theory was de facto legal. I also support going back to the days when underarm bowling was legal and it was the batsman's duty to thwack the ball for four like a field hockey player would do to a grounded ball/delivery. Therefore I am NOT against the old rules, I just prefer the BEST rules, including some of the old rules as mentioned above. Finally, racist words are NOT racist if they are used in a NON-racist fashion.