Since the injury of the Indian wicket-keeper batter, Rishabh Pant, during the Manchester Test against England, discussions were made on the injury replacements. The recent Duleep Trophy 2025 clash between West Zone and Central Zone marked the first ‘serious replacement’ as Maharashtra’s Saurabh Nawale was drafted into West Zone in place of Harvik Desai.

After giving away a 162-run lead, Harvik Desai opened the batting and fell for one run, and kept wickets in the Central Zone’s innings. The Saurashtra wicket-keeper was ruled out of the fixture and sustained a quadriceps injury. Central piled up a huge 600-run mark in the innings as wicket-keeper Saurabh Nawale walked into the middle.

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The Maharashtra batter became the first ‘serious injury’ replacement under the updated playing conditions of the BCCI for the 2025-26 season, which was issued last month. He couldn’t do well and was cleaned up for nine runs in 31 balls against Central spinner, Saransh Jain. They stretched their innings to 216/8 before shaking hands and ended the fixture in a draw.

Saurabh Nawale becomes first ‘serious injury’ replacement in India’s domestic season

The BCCI introduced the ‘serious injury’ replacement guideline for multi-day games. It will allow a player who suffers a serious external injury during a match to be replaced with a like-for-like replacement. The new playing conditions have revealed that the injury must occur on the field and can include a fracture, deep cut, or dislocation that forces a player out of the encounter.

The on-field umpires, after several discussions with the match referee and doctor, will have the final say on whether the injury is serious enough for a substitution. This rule, however, doesn’t get applied in white-ball cricket as the ICC announced that similar replacements will be trialed by the full-member nations in the domestic first-class cricket.

Due to their respective leads in the first innings of the semifinal round, South Zone and Central Zone have qualified for the final of the 2025 season of the Duleep Trophy 2025. The encounter will take place on September 11 at the BCCI Centre of Excellence Ground in Bengaluru.