There is a huge flaw in the concussion of the ICC rules 1.2.7.3 and 1.2.7.5 which all teams can take advantage of this rule in a wrong
way. As soon as the ball hits a player`s head, It is said that the medical team comes to the field and showers questions on that player. For example, what’s your name? Where are you at the moment and which team are you playing against? Question is that what is the guarantee that the affected player spoke the truth? Can’t teams take undue advantage of this rule when he makes wrong statements?
In this entire scenario, match referee Javagal Srinath is being criticized a lot for this decision. Match referee Chris Broad, Kevin Pietersen and Sunil Gavaskar have taken him to task for this decision.
Secondly, after being hit on the head, the player is not able to continue his game, he should return to the pavilion as soon as the ball is hit, but what happens is that the player continues the game despite being hit on the helmet. If Shivam Dube gets hit on the helmet on the fifth ball of the 20th over, then he crossed run on the last ball (where he was run-out), then what is the need of concussion in bowling for him.
Five years ago in Canberra, Mitchell Starc’s ball hit Ravindra Jadeja’s helmet, which led to his replacement in the bowling, Yuzvendra Chahal was his replacement who proved a match winner. The question is that even when Jadeja suffered a concussion, he did not leave the field. On the other hand, Washington Sundar’s shot went for a run and then hit a boundary at long-on and then pulled for another boundary. One run off the last ball. That means your body and mind were working properly.
First concussion substitute in the test was Marnus Labuschagne who came in place of Smith in the second inning in a Ashes test at Lords in 2019. In this match, Smith was hit on the helmet by Jofra Archer’s ball, on which he left the field, but after about an hour, he returned to the field and hit three boundaries on Chris Woakes, but Labuschagne was played in the second inning in place of him. Labuschagne was also a concussion substitute for Cameron Green in the ODI against South Africa in Bloemfontein. That’s understandable because Green retired hurt as soon as the bouncers came from Kagiso Rabada.
In Pune replaced Shivam Dube with Harshit Rana as his concussion substitute. When the rule talks about like-for-like replacement, then how can Harshit be his replacement. Harshit has the ability to bowl consistently at 145 kmph, while Shivam Dube has not bowled in nine of the last 13 T20I matches. He bowled only against the USA and Zimbabwe. It means he was not considered worthy of bowling against a big team. Then how can the replacement of such a part-time bowler with a regular pacer be justified? At that time, Ramandeep Singh was fielding as a substitute player. Ramandeep is called a batting all-rounder like Shivam Dube. He could have been the perfect replacement for Dube but that’s not what match referee Javagal Srinath had in mind. Why did he come under pressure from the Indian team management and agree to the name of Harshit Rana as a replacement? Srinath himself has been a great fast bowler of Team India. Obviously, the ICC concussion rules need to be reviewed further.