Buttler felt it was unfair but match referee took call: Morne on using Rana

Harshit took 3/33 on debut and played a role in India winning by 15 runs here on Friday night to clinch the T20I series with a match in hand.

England captain Jos Buttler was unhappy with Harshit Rana being used as a "concussion sub" replacing Shivam Dube but India's bowling coach Morne Morkel defended the move, saying the final call was taken by match referee Javagal Srinath after they put forth the young pacer's name.

Dube, who scored a half-century, got hit by Jamie Overton off the penultimate delivery of Indian innings and head coach Gautam Gambhir effectively used the rules to field tearaway quick Rana in place of the Mumbai all-rounder, who bowls at early 120 clicks.

"As far as I'm aware, Shivam (Dube) obviously took the knock on the head and when he came off the field during the innings break with mild headache symptoms, we took a name forward to the match referee in terms of a suitable substitution.

 

"From there it's up to the match referee to make that decision," Morkel replied when asked about the controversy surrounding Rana. 

The pacer took 3/33 on debut and played a role in India winning by 15 runs here on Friday night to clinch the T20I series with a match in hand.

"Harshit (Rana) was having dinner, had to get himself ready as quick as possible to get onto the field and bowl and I thought he did an excellent job," Morkel said.

Morkel sidestepped when asked about Buttler calling out the replacement as not the one which was like-for-like.

"You know, it goes to the powers sort of above me (match referee).

"Match referee, he made the decision, you know, we can only take the name forward and from there it's out of our hands. We got the green light to go with that and, you know, we gave it an opportunity," he said.

The former South African pacer, who joined the Indian team maanagement before the home season, is very impressed with the bowling unit and their consistency in execution.

"In our planning we do before games, everybody's contributing in those conversations. But the main thing at the end of the day is to go out and execute," Morkel said.

"And I think even if we're under pressure with ball in hand, like tonight, you know, we were under pressure, defending a total there tonight, it was great character shown by this young group," he said.

England were off to flyer getting 62 in Powerplay but Ravi Bishnoi, Varun Chakravarthy and Rana showed their skills in defending a total of 181.

"The way we defended tonight, yeah, I'm just very proud of this team. You know, defending a 180 sort of total on a good wicket with a wet outfield is outstanding work.