Shivam Dube made his presence and absence count in the fourth T20I against England in Pune on Friday and Jos Buttler was not too amused. The England skipper vented out his displeasure after India used a concussion sub for the all-rounder. The replacement, Harisht Rana, was as impactful with the ball as Dube was with the bat.
“Either Shivam Dube has put on about 25 mph with the ball or Harshit has really improved his batting.” Buttler fumed. “It’s not a like-for-like replacement, we don’t agree with that. It’s part of the game, I still think we should have gone on to win the match but we disagree with the decision.” The England skipper did not try to mince words after India won the game 15 runs to take an insurmountable 3-1 lead in the five-match series. The fifth and final T20I is at the Wankhede in Mumbai on Sunday.
Dube, batting at No 6, hammered a typically belligerent half century (53) before being run out off the last ball of the Indian innings. A ball earlier (19.5), he was hit on the helmet. India brought in Rana as a concussion substitute when they fielded. Buttler said he will take up the matter as there was no consultation.
“There’s no consultation. It was something as I came out to bat, I was thinking ‘who’s Harshit on for’ and I was told he was the concussion replacement, which I obviously disagreed with, it’s not a like-for-like replacement. They [umpires] said the match referee had made the decision so we had no say in it or any part of it. We’ll ask Javagal Srinath [match referee] some questions just to get some clarity around it.”
According to ICC rules, the match referee is needed to approve the concussion sub. Normally, it has to be a like for like replacement and the substitute is not expected to give a dramatic advantage to the team. “If the ICC Match Referee believes that the inclusion of the nominated Concussion Replacement, when performing their normal role, would excessively advantage their team, the ICC Match Referee may impose such conditions upon the identity and involvement of the Concussion Replacement as he/she sees fit, in line with the overriding objective of facilitating a like-for-like replacement for the concussed player,” reads the rule.
Whether it was a like-for-like or not was a matter of interpretation. Dube is a left-hander and Rana is a right-hander. But both Rana and Dube are right-handed bowlers. But the English camp thinks Rana gave a huge advantage to India. “No, we had no consultation in the game or were asked about it. It’s not the whole reason why we didn’t win the match and we had our chances to win the game, which we could have still taken. But yeah, I’d like to just get a bit of clarity around that,” Buttler complained.
There was no question asked on the issue at the post-match presentation but the consensus among the commentators was that the England management had every right to be peeved. It felt like an Impact Player rule of the IPL where teams field 12 players. “Maybe at the toss next game I’ll say we’re going to play 12 as well,” Buttler said in a rather lighter vein. But he looked both unhappy and upset at the post match media interaction.
Rana had not played a T20I before this match – he had two Tests under his belt. In his quota of overs, he claimed the wickets of Liam Livingstone, Jacob Bethel and Jamie Overton and his strikes came in his first over (12th) and then in the final over (19th) as England collapsed to 166 after being 62 for no loss at one stage. Pointed out that England did not lose the match because of Rana, Buttler said the replacement helped the Indian win. “No, he didn’t [win the game on his own], but he helped.”
The Indian team management contention was that they went by the book. “Shivam obviously took the knock against the head, came off the field, got the innings break with mild headache symptoms. We took a name forward to the match referee in terms of a suitable substitution, and from there it’s up to the match referee to make that decision. So the decision was made, you know, Harshit was having dinner, had to get himself ready as quickly as possible to get onto the field and bowl,” India bowling coach Morne Morkel said, explaining the Indian position.
“The Match referee made the decision. We can only take the name forward and from there it’s out of our hands. We got the green light to go with that and, you know, we gave it an opportunity.You know, for me, I’ve only been with the T20 group now for a short period of time.”
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