Vikram Solanki of England becomes the first man to be the super substitute in the cricket history! He replaced Simon Jones who did his best in bowling his quota of 10 overs as the new rules are in put in trial for a 10-month period starting from this July.
ICC will try out the two new set of rules - substitution and field restrictions (20 overs split into 2 slots of 10 overs, 2nd 10 can be used in 2 five slots) in the England - Australia one-day series.
Already most of the teams have increased their batting depth upto No 7, as most of the time batsmen dominate the bowlers. Again this new rule is going to add more burdens to the bowlers, as the batting depth further increases when a Pinch hitter replaces the tail ender when the balls fell short of te required runs. Anyway, Specialist bowlers like Murali or Kumble might prove to be killers as their bowling economy will be equally matched by Specialist Hitters. I assume the 12th man hereafter will be a Specialist, no bits and pieces batsman/bowler. Good ploy by ICC, sounds really interesting.
May be this is the time where coaches might play a big role in helping the captain, lets see what's that the strategy that will be devised for our Indian team, Greg what’s the difference you are going to make? Are you going to replace Kumble with Shewag?
England won the first one day by 9 wickets.
