Making the most of the Super Sub rule (ranjit nair)

(Ranjit Nair raised some interesting points about Super Subs in his comments so I asked him to contribute a posting)

Fleming may moan about the Super Sub rule, Lehman may hate it (quote: "I'd like to make a point about shit rules."), Atapattu may not understand it yet (Trevor Chesterfield says, “Atapattu was also brave enough to admit that the new International Cricket Council limited-overs formula of super sub and Power play has left them scratching their heads”), but the fact remains that while this experiment continues, all international teams will need to learn to adjust to it quickly. When we look at this rule closely, it seems like it should not be too difficult to come up with a good strategy for this new rule.

The following three points (from ICC’s ODI Playing Conditions) serve as a gist of the super sub rule (Note that there a few more subtleties but they are fairly intuitive):

1. The replacement bowler shall only be entitled to bowl the remaining number of overs that the replaced player still had available.

2. A player from the batting side may be replaced either before he has batted or whilst at the crease. The replacement of a player who has already been dismissed will only be permitted if the batting team is still to field.

3. A replaced player shall not be entitled to take any further part in the match save as the substitute fielder in accordance with the Laws.

Atapattu and Tom Moody seemed to think that the Indians took advantage of the super sub rule very well in the recently concluded series. However, a closer look at these decisions reveals a different story. In game 1, India chose Murali Kartik as the super sub. On winning the toss, Dravid chose to bat and replaced Venugopal Rao with Kartik after the 12^th over of the Sri Lankan innings. This worked out very well because now we had an extra bowler to add some teeth to our bowling line-up. While this seemed like a good idea, it could have backfired in the second game where India again went with a specialist bowler (Sree Santh) as the Super Sub. Dravid again won the toss, chose to field first and ended up not using the extra bowler so as not to weaken the batting line-up. This time around Dravid was criticized (and rightly so) because it seemed strange to pick a bowler as the super sub if he intended to bat first. Maybe Dravid expected to lose the toss given that he won the previous toss in which case someone needs to explain to him that tosses are i.i.d. (the geek in me raises his ugly head) and that winning the previous toss has no bearing on whether he would win the next one. Luckily for Dravid and India, the Indian bowlers without Sree Santh, were more than enough for Sri Lanka.

In the next 5 games, Dravid’s choice of the super sub and the timing on when to make the replacement were spot on. But just when I thought that he had a hang of this new rule, he proved me wrong in the first two games against SA by opting for a specialist batsman as the super sub. In the first game, Gautam Gambhir was chosen as the super sub. This immediately told Graeme Smith if he won the toss India would be in an inconvenient position if they were made to bat first because they would either have to choose not to use their super sub or would end up with one bowler less. As it turned out, Smith won the toss and chose to field first. Then South African bowlers got the Indian top order out early (35/5) forcing Dravid to bring in Gambhir in place of Murali Kartik, leaving India a bowler short. It is academic to talk about what would have happened if J P Yadav or another all-rounder was chosen as the super sub, but at the very least it would not have left India in a position where they were playing 12 vs. 11. In game two, Dravid made the same mistake of going with a specialist batsman as the super sub. Luckily for him, this time around he won the toss and the game, and the fallacy of his thinking was not exposed.

What captains should realize is that the Super Sub rule allows them to make ODI cricket a 12 vs. 12 game. That is why I fail to follow the logic of going with a specialist batsman or a specialist bowler as the super sub. It works fine if you win the toss (like in game two against SA and game 1 against SL) but you could suddenly find yourself a bowler or a batsman short. As a rule, the super sub should be an all rounder who fields really well. If we field first, we should use one of the specialist bowlers for ten overs at a trot and then replace him with our super sub. This could be someone like Raina, JP Yadav or Yuvraj Singh. If one of the specialist bowlers is having an off day then again we bring the Super Sub in. That way we have an extra bat when it comes to our turn to bat. If we bat first, we bring in the all rounder only in the case of a batting collapse. If there is no collapse then the super sub is brought in after one of the specialist bowlers finishes his quota or gets tonked around a lot. The thing with this strategy is that you are safe irrespective of whether you bat first or field first. Plus, the opposition doesn't know what you would prefer -- batting or field first – unlike in game one against SA where Smith remarked that he chose to put India in because of our choice of super sub.