Follow UsIndian great Sunil Gavaskar tore apart the International Cricket Council (ICC)’s Concussion substitute rule, calling it ‘incompetent’. According to Gavaskar, the players who can’t handle or are not good enough for short-pitched bowling shouldn’t be playing Test cricket.
Gavaskar didn’t stop there, adding that if ICC are giving a like-for-like substitute for concussion, then they should consider one for the injuries.
“I’ve always felt that you are giving a like-for-like substitute for incompetence. If you are not good enough to play short-pitched bowling, don’t play Test cricket; go and play tennis or golf. You are giving a like-for-like substitute for somebody who can’t play the short ball and gets hit,” Gavaskar said on Sony Sports.
The talk originated after India’s Rishabh Pant was all but ruled out of the remainder of the Test series, with a fractured foot. Gavaskar reckoned that the ICC should clearly have a substitute rule in place for such injuries, as it could put a team at a serious disadvantage.
“Here, it is a clear injury (Pant); there has to be a substitute. I want some sort of committee appointed to take a call on this. There is a cricket committee, ICC has a cricket committee, but at the moment that’s headed by Sourav Ganguly, the ICC chairman is Jay Shah, and the ICC CEO is Sanjog Gupta,” said Gavaskar.
“So we don’t want a situation for the media here in particular and in Australia to say, ‘Oh, because it’s an Indian situation, they have started to do that’. So, let it be a totally different committee to look at these injuries, maybe with doctors, etc., and let that committee come to a call,” he added.
As it turned out, Pant walked out to bat, albeit in unbearable pain, scoring a half-century that took India to 358 in their first innings of the Manchester Test.