‘Overwhelmingly positive’: Shield injury subs to continue

Cricket Australia have hailed the impact of their injury substitute rule as “overwhelmingly positive” with the trial set to continue for the rest of the Sheffield Shield season, including the final.

The groundbreaking new rule to allow teams to replace an injured or ill player up until stumps on day two of the match was initially introduced for the first five rounds of the season.

Following three successful substitutions that CA believes could provide a blueprint for its introduction in Test cricket, the governing body has extended the trial for the entire season.

There will only be minor tweaks to the rule going forward; subbed in players won’t have to serve any penalty time accrued by the player they replace before being allowed to bat or bowl – the same restriction that caught out Usman Khawaja in the first Ashes Test and prevented him from opening the batting in the first innings.

“A player that suffers an external blow (like a deep cut or fracture) and goes off the ground for treatment, doesn’t have to serve penalty time when they come back on,” said Peter Roach, CA’s cricket operations boss.

“The logic there is the umpire has seen the external blow and clearly knows they’re not faking an injury and therefore the player is not off the field for any other reason than getting treatment.

“That’s distinct from an internal blow where the umpires can’t see the injury.

“But when you’ve been subbed out of a game due to injury, clearly we know they’re not gaming the system, so we saw no reason for time off the ground to count towards the person coming in.

“Equally, penalty time could potentially rush a team into a substitution – we don’t want that, we want the player to stay on the field so if they can go off and get treatment and continue to participate in the game, then that’s the best result.”

In the Shield final, the two teams will be permitted to make their injury or reciprocal tactical substitution up until stumps on day three, owing to the longer duration of the season decider, which is scheduled for five days compared to four days for home-and-away matches.

“One of the key reasons we wanted to introduce this was to reduce the cumulative load on bowlers if their team loses a bowler early in the game and they’ve got a full two innings to go,” Roach said.

“We don’t believe in the last two days of a game that load is anywhere near as significant; we feel like teams, if they’re a bowler down, should be able to get through the last two days of the game with their existing bowlers.”

CA’s chief medical officer (or proxy in their absence) may also require the injured player in the Shield final to submit a scan before a replacement is allowed, given the deterrent of the 12-day standdown period is obsolete at the end of the season.

Under the trial, all injured or ill players subbed out of a Shield match are required to serve a mandatory 12-day standdown period from national or domestic competitions, starting from the day after the scheduled second day of the match.

Going forward, the standdown requirement will only be waived if a player is seeking to represent Australia within the 12-day period, and only after a submission is approved by CA’s head of cricket operations (Roach), chief medical officer (John Orchard) and chief of cricket (James Allsopp).

NSW made the first two injury replacements this season with Sean Abbott subbed out of their round two clash with Victoria after he split the webbing on his bowling hand on day one, while Will Salzmann was replaced in round four against the Vics when he tore his hamstring while fielding in the fourth over of the match.

The Blues lost both matches with Tasmania becoming the first team to win a match after making an injury substitution when they beat NSW in the last round after losing Mitch Owen to a leg injury ahead of day two.

It was Tasmania’s second substitution of the match after emerging allrounder Aidan O’Connor was concussed when he collided with the picket fence at Cricket Central diving to try and save a boundary.

The injury substitute remains separate to the concussion substitute rule, which are unlimited and can be made across any day of the match, pending approval from the match referee.

There is yet to be a tactical substitution made by an opposition team in response to an injury replacement, a clause which was developed to ensure fairness.

“That indicates teams are still happy with the XI they chose for the match, which is pleasing,” Roach said.

“There were times when teams were intimating that they were going to use an injury substitution but the deterrents that are in place – the 12-day standdown and tactical sub – prevented them from going down that path, which is exactly what we wanted.

“We didn’t want it to be able to be manipulated.

“That was good validation that those two things are really important parts of this substitute rule so that we’re only replacing players that are genuinely injured.

“At this stage, after five rounds, it’s worked well when the substitutes have happened, and it’s worked well the couple of times we’ve heard that substitutes may have happened and the deterrence prevented it.

“The fact we’ve seen just three and we’re halfway through the season is a good endorsement that this can’t be rorted and we’re just trying to keep the evenness and fairness of 11 versus 11 contests going.”

South Africa and India are also trialing their own versions of injury substitutes in their respective first-class competitions as the ICC considers whether it could be implemented at Test level.

New Zealand opted against the measure in the centenary season of their Plunket Shield competition due to travel and cost constraints for away teams.

Injuries to India’s Rishabh Pant, who batted with a fractured foot, and England’s Chris Woakes, who came out at No.11 nursing a dislocated shoulder in a sling under his jumper, put the debate over injury replacements in cricket back in the spotlight earlier this year.

The injury to Woakes, who has since retired from international cricket, occurred on day one and left England a bowler down for the remaining four days of the match, with India winning a thrilling fifth Test by six runs to square the series 2-2.

“We will be looking to be active contributors to the potential introduction of injury substitutes in Test cricket,” Roach said.

“Of all those trialing it, we think we’ve got something that is a bit different and the feedback at the moment is positive and let’s hope it continues.”

Sheffield Shield 2025-26 standings