Cricket Australia (CA) believes its injury substitute rule used in the Sheffield Shield would be suitable for international cricket, as it waits on the ICC to make a decision on whether a version is introduced globally, with a call expected later this year after another trial in county cricket is complete.
Last season, CA brought in a playing condition that allowed a like-for-like injury replacement within the first two days of a match (extended to three days for the Shield final) with the opposition permitted to make a substitution in response if they wished.
The expectation is that the system will continue for the 2026-27 Shield season - there is only a short gap between the end of the county season and start of the competition - but the ICC need to tick it so the Shield retains first-class status. If substitutes were introduced into international cricket that had differences to the CA model, it would then need to decide whether to adopt the same rules. Currently, substitutions are only allowed for concussions in international cricket.
"They'll make that decision at the end of the English summer and advise us again," Peter Roach, CA's head of scheduling and domestic cricket, said. "We would assume that they would allow it to continue, but nothing's a given.
"So if they allow us to continue, I guess the questions we've got are: are they going to bring in something to international cricket that's either the same as ours or different, and then we would have a choice to make whether we adjust ours to suit international cricket or if we're allowed to stay where we are."
Under CA's regulations, an injured player was replaced on eight occasions during the season (the reciprocal substitution only happened once when Tasmania took the opportunity to bring in a fresh fast bowler) with Roach saying the feedback was "strong and positive" from the states. However, South Australia coach Ryan Harris was not impressed when Mitch Perry replaced Sam Elliott in the Shield final.
"It's always frustrating when it's against you," Harris said at the time. "It's a s*** rule unless you make the most of it. In saying that we could do the same. We're allowed to do the same until the end of play.
"Is it the right rule? It has been in all year, so it's not as if it's just coming in for this game. It is what it is. We know the rule coming into the final. We know the rule all year. It's only been used couple of times, but it's ideally not used in a final, but it is. It's the rule, so it's allowed to be."
Roach added that some teams had tried to exploit the system, which CA had hoped would be the case to test its robustness, but had been unable to, which was encouragement that the protocols worked well. Any player subbed out through injury faces a 12-day stand-down period.
CA's trial followed one from the BCCI, which only covered major injuries, and has been followed by the ECB version, which covers a wider range of circumstances including illness and life events, and can be used at any point in a game, seeing considerably more replacement players than was the case in Australia. Cricket South Africa has also run their version.
"We see some of the challenges that some of the other rules have got around the world that didn't cover all injuries or got exploited by a team," Roach said. "We didn't have that issue, so we covered all injuries, both at game and potentially overnight, not that we had any of them, but we also didn't get exploited.
"The team that has the injury shouldn't get an advantage in the game. While we're trying to limit that disadvantage, but they shouldn't get an advantage, and we found that our rule did that. So we're really hopeful that the ICC will look favourably on our trial and look at that for international cricket, but if they don't, we've got a decision to make come October."
The 2026-27 men's domestic season will start on September 18 with the One-Day Cup then the opening round of Sheffield Shield is from October 7.