NEW DELHI: England captain Jos Buttler disagreed with India’s brilliant move of using Harshit Rana as a concussion replacement for half-centurion Shivam Dube, which allowed the hosts to win the fourth game of the five-match T20I series in Pune on Friday by a margin of 15 runs.
After Dube, who scored 53 from 34 balls, was struck on the helmet by a delivery from Jamie Overton in the 19.5th over, the concussion procedure was implemented.
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“We don’t agree with concussion substitute. It’s not a like for like replacement,” Jos Buttler said at the post match media conference.
Ultimately, Rana played a crucial role, taking three wickets, including Liam Livingstone‘s, and Buttler questioned if the concussion regulation was actually adhered to.
Buttler was sarcastic in calling out the dummy sold by India.
“I think either Shivam Dube put on 25 mph with the ball or Harshit Rana has improved a lot with his batting,” the skipper said.
A like-for-like replacement is permitted by the concussion protocol, and Rana was a rapid substitute for medium pacer Dube, who CSK use as an impact player in the IPL.
For the record, Rana does have a Ranji Trophy hundred.
All they did, according to Indian bowling coach Morne Morkel, was assign a name to match referee Javagal Srinath.
“We only gave a name to match referee. After that it’s out of our hands. Harshit was having dinner. He had to quickly get up and go out. I thought he did an excellent job,” Morkel said.
India has long been adept in using the gray area of like-for-like replacement in the case of concussion substitutes.
India last employed the strategy in a T20I match against Australia during the 2020-21 series.
Yuzvendra Chahal took Ravindra Jadeja‘s place as a concussion substitute after the former was struck only on the head and his hamstring became more of a problem.
Getting the best of both worlds-Dube’s batting and Rana’s pace-was Friday’s move.