Rishabh Pant's injury during the fourth Test against England triggered a debate about whether the ICC should allow like-for-like replacements for external injuries. Pant had a broken metatarsal, but still came out to bat as there was no provision for replacements for external injuries. Pant wasn't at his best physically and it hampered his performance drastically. This was a significant disadvantage to India.

The current rule allows substitutes to field or do wicketkeeping, but they are not allowed to bat or bowl. The recent events saw many cricket greats come out in support of a rule change that allows replacements for external injuries. India great Sunil Gavaskar joined the likes of Michael Vaughan and David Lloyd to voice in favour of rule change.

“Here, it is a clear injury (Pant); there has to be a substitute. I want some sort of committee appointed to take a call on this. There is a cricket committee, ICC has a cricket committee, but at the moment that’s headed by Sourav Ganguly, the ICC chairman is Jay Shah, and the ICC CEO is Sanjog Gupta,” said Gavaskar as quoted by the Indian Express.

“So we don’t want a situation for the media here in particular and in Australia to say, ‘Oh, because it’s an Indian situation, they have started to do that’. So, let it be a totally different committee to look at these injuries, maybe with doctors, etc., and let that committee come to a call,” he added.

Meanwhile, according to a report in the Times of India, the ICC is mulling over making changes to the existing rule, and might allow a like-for-like replacement for an injured player.

“There is a chance that teams will get to bring in a replacement for serious external injuries. The matter is already under deliberation. A ratification is expected in the next ICC cricket committee meeting,” an ICC source told TOI.

In June earlier this year, the ICC had announced that like-for-like replacements for injured players would be trialled by full members of the world body in first-class cricket for six months from October 2025.

"Player who suffers a serious injury on the field of play at any time after the match has started (including any pre-match warm-up period) may be replaced for the remainder of the match by a fully participating like-for-like player," said an ICC statement.