Controversy erupted during the IPL 2026 match between Mumbai Indians (MI) and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) that took place at the Wankhede Stadium on Thursday. During the 17th over of Chennai Super Kings’ innings, New Zealand’s Mitchell Santner fell down while attempting a catch to dismiss Kartik Sharma.
Mitchell Santner landed on the ground in an awkward manner on his left shoulder. The replays, though, showed that his head in fact hit the ground while taking the catch. Following his fall, though, Santner was seen applying an ice pack on the injured shoulder while watching the proceedings from the dugout.
Do Shardul Thakur qualify as a concussion substitute?
Technically, yes. Shardul Thakur does qualify as a concussion substitute in place of Mitchell Santner since the IPL match referee officially accepted the medical assessment which was submitted by the team’s medical staff.
Fans, however, were left frustrated with the decision to appoint Shardul Thakur as a concussion sub because of the fact that Santner’s injury had more to do with his shoulder rather than a head injury.
Adding to the fans’ frustration was that Mumbai Indians had already used their impact player substitution, by bringing in Danish Malewar in place of Allah Ghazanfar for the chase.
It, however, has to be noted that the impact player substitutes and concussion substitutes are two different things.
According to the rule 1.2.9.1 of the IPL playing conditions, under “Concussion Replacement”, If a player sustains a concussion or suspected concussion, as a result of a head or neck injury during the course of the relevant match, a Concussion Replacement may be permitted if “the head or neck injury must have been sustained during play and within the playing area”.
The rule goes onto say that “a concussion or suspected concussion must have been formally diagnosed by the Players’ Medical Team Doctor.”
The rule further adds that the team manager shall submit a Concussion Replacement Request to the IPL Match Referee on a standard form, which will. In the form, the team must formally report the player who has suffered a concussion or suspected concussion, explain when and how the incident happened, and confirm that the team doctor believes the player may have sustained a concussion from that incident.
The team should also name a like-for-like replacement, with the replacement then approved by the match referee. In this case, however, Shardul is not literally a “like-for-like” replacement, since he is a right-arm seam bowling all-rounder compared to Santner’s left-arm spin bowling all-rounder. That is another major point of debate among fans and experts alike.
In this case, Santner’s major issue was a shoulder injury, and despite his head hitting the ground, he still wasn’t checked for a head concussion. However, the match referee approved the decision to name Shardul as a concussion substitute, and whatever decision the match referee takes is the final decision, and thus cannot be appealed by either team.
Despite coming onto bat, Shardul Thakur was only able to score six runs from 12 balls, and Mumbai Indians, looking to chase down 208, where bowled out for just 104 in 19 overs. MI are currently in eighth place in the IPL 2026 standings with just four points from seven matches.
