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\u201cIf you stick anyone else with an MRI scanner, a bowler is going to show, \u2018Oh yeah, you\u2019ve got a bit of inflammation around your knee. Oh sweet, we can get another fresh bowler in\u2019. I just think that conversation should be shut down and stopped.\u201d<\/p>\n
However there are plenty of advocates for the move, not the least sport science and medical experts in the game who believe that injury mitigation should be a greater priority to extend the careers of players, particularly pace bowlers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are the only team sport that does this,\u201d former England captain Michael Vaughan wrote in The Telegraph earlier this year. \u201cWhat we are doing at the moment is intentionally depleting a contest by making one of the teams effectively play with ten men for four days of the match, on the back of bad luck.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have felt for many years that Test cricket should introduce substitutes for injuries that are clear and obvious, like we have seen with Rishabh Pant in the fourth Test at Old Trafford.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under the trial, Shield teams will get the option of making one “like-for-like” injury substitution per match, as distinct from the unlimited provision for concussion subs.<\/p>\n
The “injury” can be any kind of physical problem picked up during play, in warm-ups or off the field. Illness is also a valid reason to make the substitution.<\/p>\n
The match referee will determine whether the request is legitimate, and may also restrict the replacement player’s role, forbidding them from bowling if, for example, the player they are replacing is a batter only.<\/p>\n
As a quid pro quo, the opposing team can then choose to make a tactical substitution in response, also by the end of day two of the game.<\/p>\n
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Once they have been substituted, the injured or ill player must serve a mandatory 12-day stand down period, during which they cannot play again. The 12 days start from the day after the scheduled second day of the match.<\/p>\n
Teams will still only be allowed to travel with squads of 12 for Shield games, with the 12th player meant to be a fast bowler, due to the statistical likelihood that most injuries will take place to fast bowlers.<\/p>\n
CA statistics show that last summer\u2019s Shield featured eight instances where a player was injured during a game, and on six occasions the substitute rule would have come into effect because the player had been injured on the first two days of a game. Six of those injured were fast bowlers.<\/p>\n