Further to Big Vern's trip to hospital in the ongoing England-South Africa game at the Oval, it strikes me yet again just how much of an odd beast cricket is for being a team sport that does not allow substitutions of batsmen, bowlers or wicketkeepers under even the most reasonable of circumstances. Every other team sport allows substitutions, some multiple per match (in basketball, I think they're unlimited), for tactical as well as injury replacement reasons. But in cricket, if a fast bowler pulls up in the first innings with a torn muscle and is carted off to hospital, the team has to play one bowler and batsman down for the entire game, and hence are at a strong disadvantage for no fault of their own.
Of course, cricket differs from the likes of football, rugby etc. in that the game is broken up into distinct phases where a team is doing different things, and most players are specialists in performing a job in one phase or the other. In football, if you tactically replace a defender with a striker, you run the risk of a weakened defence for the rest of the game. But in cricket, replacing, say, your bowler who bats at 11 with a specialist batsman when you're batting in the 4th innings has no downside. Therein I think lies the concern for cricket - replacing a specialist with a different kind of specialist for tactical reasons might gain an unfair advantage for all sorts of reasons (adding a batsman when you're looking to play out a draw, swapping a batsman for a spinner when you're trying to bowl a team out in the 4th innings), and isn't really in the spirit of the game.
The most comparable sport, baseball, has the pinch hitter rule, where a batter can be substituted with another. The player taken off can play no further part in the game. This is used tactically at times, but because baseball is played over 9 innings rather than 2, the impact is probably lower.
Nonetheless, cricket seems to have been going in the opposite direction, with the removal of runners. I think that the concerns that there are about tactical abuse should not be insurmountable, and in circumstances of genuine injury teams should be able to substitute an injured player, with the substitute taking a full role in the game.
A few suggestions about how this might be done, in order to curb abuse - perhaps some or all of the following:
1) A player who is substituted out may take no further role in the game. This includes if a substitute fielder comes on for a player. If a player goes off for assessment, they can't come back on even if they are deemed fit if they have been substituted in the meantime. A team might therefore have to risk having 10 men on the field if they want the injured player to come back on later.
2) A substitution can only take place at the innings break between the first and second match innings (obviously for 2 innings games only - the issue doesn't seem to be as significant in limited overs)
3) Teams may only make one substitution, and the player coming on must be the designated 12th man. This adds an element of interest to the 12th man selection - do you pick a player to replace the player most likely to break down (probably a quick bowler)? Or do you deliberately pick a 12th player as a tactical substitute?
4) A player may only substituted if the umpires are satisfied that the player being replaced has a genuine injury/ailment that prevents them from taking any further part in the game.
Number 4) ought to curb any potential abuses, as the umpires would be within their rights to refuse a substitution if they had any doubts that the player being taken off was genuinely injured. Of course, injuries can be faked or overstated, but with the level of international scrutiny, any team that habitually bends the rules this way would be picked up pretty quickly, and the umpires could respond by simply refusing to allow them to substitute players. And in international games, it shouldn't be beyond the resources of the game to have an independent medical professional available to assess an injured player. And surely any hospital admission should allow for an automatic substitution?
Thoughts?