England captain Jos Buttler questioned India’s move to replace concussed Shivam Dube with Harshit Rana after losing the Pune T20I, saying that it did not align with the definition of a like-for-like replacement. Harshit took three wickets as a concussion substitute to help India to a series-clinching 15-run victory against England in the fourth T20 International on Friday.
India’s decision to bring on Harshit as a concussion substitute for Dube during the fourth T20I against England has come under scrutiny. Television commentators Kevin Pietersen and Nick Knight, who were on air at the time, also raised concerns about the substitution. Dube, who had been struck twice on the helmet while scoring 53 off 34 balls, did not take the field during England’s chase.
“It is not a like-for-like replacement. We don’t agree with that,” Buttler told the reporters. “Either Shivam Dube has put on about 25 mph with the ball or Harshit’s really improved his batting. It’s part of the game and we really should have gone on to win the match, but we disagree with the decision.”
Dube scored a brilliant half-century after walking in at 57 for 4 and forging an 87-run partnership for the sixth wicket with Hardik Pandya. Dube and Hardik’s fifties helped India recover from a top-order collapse to post a total of 181 for 9. However, Dube got hit on the helmet by a 141.5kph bouncer from Jamie Overton on the penultimate ball of the innings.
India had batting allrounder Ramandeep Singh on the bench, who might have been a more suitable like-for-like replacement for Dube. For a brief period, Ramandeep took the field as a substitute for Varun Chakravarthy.
Furthermore, Buttler claimed that there was no consultation made with the England team before fielding Harshit as a concussion substitute and said that they would ask questions to match referee Javagal Srinath to get some clarity about it. However, the English skipper said that it was not the only reason they lost the match.
“There was no consultation [with us]. That’s something I was thinking as I came out to bat – who is Harshit on for? They said he is a concussion replacement, which I obviously disagreed with. It is not a like-for-like replacement. They said that the match referee had made the decision. We had no say in it or any part of it. But we’ll ask Javagal [Srinath] some questions just to get some clarity around it” Buttler added.
“Like I said, it was not the whole reason why we did not win the match. We had our chances to win the game which we could have still taken. But I’d like to have a bit more clarity on that,” he said.
