Rishabh Pant, the Indian wicketkeeper-batter, will miss the rest of the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy. He fractured his toe while batting on the first day of the fourth Test against England in Manchester on Wednesday.
Pant injured himself when he inside-edged a reverse sweep off Chris Woakes’ bowling, hitting his foot. He was in pain right away, and the team physio came to help. Because he couldn’t put his foot on the ground, the Indian vice-captain had to leave the field. He was taken off the field in a buggy ambulance for further medical attention at Old Trafford. Scans later showed that Pant had a toe fracture.
Although Pant returned to bat on the second day, despite the pain, doctors have advised him to rest for six weeks.
While there’s a rule for concussion replacements, there isn’t one that allows another player to play if someone gets injured. Former England captain Michael Vaughan thinks teams should be able to have substitutes who can bat or bowl if a player gets hurt. He said it’s unfair to have a 10 vs 11 match.
Vaughan posted on X, saying that for clear injuries in the first innings of Tests, they should allow like-for-like substitutes, just like they do for concussions.
However, former Indian cricketer Parthiv Patel disagrees. He said teams often try to take advantage of these kinds of rules, so there’s no need to change them.
Parthiv, a JioHotstar expert, said during a media interaction on Thursday that there are already loopholes that teams try to exploit, like with the concussion rule in T20 cricket. He thinks it’s fair that if someone gets injured in a game, it is what it is. He is okay with the rule change that allows a wicket-keeper to do wicket-keeping, which wasn’t always the case.
He added that otherwise, someone from the team would have had to keep wickets. He feels it’s unfortunate that Rishabh got hit, but there’s nothing they can do about it.