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Image caption: James Anderson is England’s all-time leading wicket-taker
By Stephan Shemilt, Cricket correspondent
Lancashire captain and England legend James Anderson has criticized the regulations governing injury replacements in the County Championship, describing them as “daft” and “nonsensical.”
The season-long trial permits replacements for injuries, illnesses, and significant life events, but Lancashire has been left confused on two occasions by decisions regarding the replacements they were allowed to bring in.
During their victory over Gloucestershire, seamer Tom Bailey was deemed too experienced to serve as a like-for-like replacement for fellow pace bowler Ajeet Singh Dale, forcing Ollie Sutton to be called up from a second XI match. The following week, Tom Hartley was blocked from replacing Arav Shetty for similar reasons. As a result, Shetty—a spin-bowling all-rounder—was replaced by wicketkeeper George Bell, who bowls only occasional spin.
Replacements must be approved by the match referee. Peter Such was the referee at Bristol, while Ian Ramage oversaw the match at Chester-le-Street.
“I don’t know what the protocols are,” Anderson said on his Tailenders podcast. “I think they just check Cricinfo and the stats to see if the averages are better. Arav Shetty had badly broken his thumb in three places, and we were told we couldn’t replace him with Tom Hartley because he’s too experienced.
“It seems daft. Surely the whole reason the replacement thing has been brought in is for situations like that—someone has broken their finger and can’t take part in the rest of the game, and we had a like-for-like replacement available. It happened to us at Gloucestershire as well. It just feels a bit nonsensical.”
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) may consider adjusting the replacement regulations after the first block of County Championship fixtures concludes. Each team has two more games before the competition breaks for the T20 Blast. During those rounds, match referees will gather feedback from the 18 counties’ directors of cricket. The ECB has confirmed it will consult counties on the trial.
The governing body stressed that the new rules are a trial and that it will learn each time they are applied. The protocols for selecting a replacement are not entirely new—substitutions for concussions and Covid cases were already in place before this season. The International Cricket Council has permitted similar trials in domestic cricket in India and Australia.
Although Anderson acknowledged that Lancashire would have been left short of fit players against both Gloucestershire and Durham had replacements not been allowed, he said he is “leaning towards” scrapping injury replacements altogether. The 43-year-old, the most successful seam bowler in Test history with 704 wickets, suggested he would never be allowed to enter a game as an injury replacement because he would always be more experienced than the player he is replacing.
“It basically means I’ve got to play every game,” said Anderson. “There’s no point me resting, because I can’t then come into a game—I can’t be a replacement, ever. If I get injured, I get injured. There’s more chance of me getting injured if I try to play every game. I can be replaced, because no one in our squad has the same experience, but I could never replace someone else.”