Matt Roller having no issues with the new injury substitutes rule in county cricket astonishes me! Make no mistake if the current rule on injury substitutes continues, tactical substitutes will follow! But hey ho who cares about the history of red ball county cricket and the entire ethos of it being a game of skill, fitness and twists and turns played over four days! With captains (among
many other decisions and considerations), forced to manage their bowlers workloads! Why not go the whole hog and allow pace bowlers to be replaced by spinners in the second innings or just have a battery of fast / fast medium bowlers in every squad, two or three for the first innings and two or three more for the second? Perhaps allow more free flowing batters to be subbed in if quick runs are required? Even better once the 38 year old opener has had a knock let’s allow the subbing in of a 20 year old fielding replacement? All these new measures will apparently raise the standard (I doubt that) at the expense of every reason red ball cricket is historically such a fantastic and enjoyable sport! Or perish the thought, while not giving so-called pundits / experts something to talk about, why don’t we stick to an eleven selected players versus eleven selected players format (allowing a substitute for extraordinary circumstances only, agreed to by both captains and the umpires) that has always worked rather well? Then all we need to talk about is the quality of the cricket.
