Former cricketer Kevin Pietersen has extended support to Harshit Rana after his concussion substitutes controversy during the fourth T20I of England’s tour of India 2025.
Harshit Rana was not a part of Playing 11 at the toss and was brought in as a concussion substitute for Shivam Dube who got hit on his helmet in the last over of India’s innings.
Rana made his T20I debut becoming the first player from India to do so in such a manner. However, there was widespread controversy on the matter, with several experts claiming that Rana was not a like-for-like replacement for Dube.
The fast bowler went on to take three wickets and played a pivotal role in India’s 15-run victory. After his marvellous debut, Pietersen praised the young speedster for assessing the conditions well and not said that it was not his fault that he was chosen as the concussion substitute.
“No, Harshit’s performance was great. I thought that he delivered his skill excellently. I thought that he was brilliant in the way that he assessed a couple of the batters.”
“The way that he assessed the conditions where he went out wide and on a couple of occasions. He was brilliant.”
“And for his cricket, he was outstanding, and it’s not his fault that he was the one who ended up being the concussion substitute. He went there and he bowled his heart and he bowled to a victory,” said Kevin pietersen.
After England decided to bowl first, India struggled to defend Saqib Mahmood’s bowling attacks, as he dismissed Sanju Samson, Tilak Varma, and Suryakumar Yadav in his very first over.
But Abhishek Sharma and Rinku Singh tried to forge a partnership before Adil Rashid get rid of the former for 29 runs. However, Shivam Dube came into attack and stablised the innings along with Hardik Pandya after the dismissal of Rinku Singh for 30 runs.
With a 88 run partnership, Dube and Pandya revived India with their fifties and helped the side to score a total of 181 runs in their 20 overs.
Phil Salt and Ben Duckett had a solid start for the side as they scored 62 runs for the first wicket stand in the 5th over. The following two overs had one wicket each with Axar Patel dismising Phil Salt while Ravi Bishnoi bagged the wicket of Jos Buttler for 2 runs.
However Harrry Brook troubled Indian bowlers as he smashed 51 runs off 26 deliveries. But with his dismissal by Varun Chakravarthy the side’s defence started to crumble.
Jamie Overton and Adil Rashid scored 19 and 10 runs respectively, but it was not enough to bring victory for the visitors.
Meanwhile Varun Chakravarthy had two wickets while Arshdeep Singh and Axar Patel bagged a wicket each. Shivam Dube was named as the Player of the match for his impressive fifty.
The final match of the T20I will be played on February 02 at Wankhede Stadium before the start of the three match ODI series against same opponent.
