In the Duleep Trophy semi-final between West Zone and Central Zone, the ‘serious injury’ replacement rule was used for the first time in Indian domestic cricket. Saurabh Nawale replaced Harvik Desai, who suffered a quadriceps blow.
Desai, who is a wicketkeeper-batter, opened in the first innings and could only manage one run, when West Zone scored 438. He also kept wickets for his team when Central Zone put on 600 runs.
Nawale came to bat in the second innings for West Zone after Desai was ruled out of the match. Nawale could not last long, as he was bowled by Saransh Jain after scoring nine runs off 31 balls, with two fours.
West Zone finished at 216/8, and Central Zone advanced to the final on the basis of their first innings lead.
After Rishabh Pant suffered a toe injury in the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy in England, the BCCI introduced a serious injury replacement policy before the domestic season for multi-day matches.
The new rule permits a team a like-for-like replacement for a player who suffers a serious external injury. This rule is not allowed in the white-ball games.
In the middle of this year, the ICC announced that all Full-Member nations would experiment with similar substitutions in their domestic first-class matches for players who suffer major injuries during an ongoing match.
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