March 31 (Reuters) - County cricket in England and Wales will allow fully participating replacement players this season, covering injuries as well as illness and major personal circumstances, the BBC reported on Tuesday.
The season-long trial will be introduced after the International Cricket Council asked member boards to experiment with injury replacements in domestic cricket.
Injured players could be replaced by a substitute fielder under existing rules, but the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has expanded the scope to include illness and significant life events, while also allowing replacements to participate fully.
Life-event replacements will apply in circumstances such as players leaving matches to attend the birth of a child or to deal with the serious illness of a family member.
"Most sports have injury replacements," Rob Andrew, managing director of the England and Wales Cricket Board, told BBC Sport.
"We haven't gone whole hog with tactical replacements like rugby. We feel it is appropriate that players are not forced to stay on the field or miss significant life events."
Once replaced, a player will not be able to return in the same match, and any incoming player must be a like-for-like replacement approved by the match referee.
Medical replacements will require clearance from county chief medical officers, while life-event replacements must be signed off by county chief executives.
To deter teams from exploiting the system for competitive gain, players replaced due to injury or illness will be subject to an eight-day stand-down period, though no such restriction applies to life-event absences.
There will also be no in-match cut-off for replacements, allowing changes to be made at any stage from the first ball to the final delivery.
"If teams are going to start pushing at the edges of the regulation then it risks the chance we will have to backpedal," ECB head of cricket operations Alan Fordham told the BBC.
(Reporting by Suramya Kaushik in BengaluruEditing by Toby Davis)
