New South Wales bowler Charlie Stobo has created history as the Sheffield Shield’s first injury substitute after replacing wounded Blues teammate Sean Abbott on day one of the red-ball match against Victoria at Junction Oval.
On Wednesday, Abbott split the webbing on his right hand while attempting to field the ball in his follow-through. He immediately left the field and didn’t complete his over.
The 33-year-old, who finished with figures of 1-29 from 9.1 overs having earlier removed Victorian opener Harry Dixon, has been replaced by Stobo for the remainder of the match after Cricket NSW successfully applied for the switch.
As part of Cricket Australia’s new injury substitute rule, Victoria is now permitted to make a tactical substitution of their own by stumps on day two.
Watch Aus v India ODI Series LIVE and ad-break free during play. Only on FOX CRICKET, available on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1 >
Abbott will now serve a mandatory 12-day stand-down period from all domestic and national matches, meaning he will miss the One-Day Cup match against Victoria at the same venue on Monday.
The right-armed seamer has been named in Australia’s T20 squad to face India, with the first match scheduled for October 29. CA has confirmed that Abbott, injury pending, would be eligible to play the T20 match.
Abbott has been touted as a candidate to join Australia’s pace cartel for the upcoming Ashes campaign, alongside Queensland’s Michael Neser and South Australia’s Brendan Doggett, who is currently nursing a hamstring complaint. Fellow fringe quicks Lance Morris, Jhye Richardson and Spencer Johnson are also battling injury setbacks.
Last month, CA announced it would trial injury substitutes for the first half of this season’s Sheffield Shield, with the potential for the groundbreaking rule change to be implemented at Test level.
The experimental playing condition, which could be passed onto the ICC for consideration in Test cricket, is designed to prevent bowlers from shouldering too much workload should a teammate suffer an injury.
Victoria had collapsed to 5-66 after NSW won the toss and chose to bowl first in Melbourne before veteran batter Peter Handscomb and all-rounder Mitchell Perry struck fifties to rebuild the innings.
