Even the conversation, Ben Stokes said, was “ridiculous”. Injury substitutes, he argued, should not be a part of cricket. About 20 minutes earlier, the India coach Gautam Gambhir had provided the opposite answer.
“Imagine if you have to play with 10 men against 11, how unfortunate that would be?” he said after Rishabh Pant broke his foot. “You stick me in an MRI scan and you’d get someone else in right away,” countered Stokes, with his ample experience of playing through the pain barrier.
