Mumbai Indians have used their Impact Player substitution on AM Ghazanfar — bringing in Danish Malewar as the Impact Player replacement — despite Mitchell Santner walking off the field with a shoulder injury sustained while taking the Kartik Sharma catch. The substitution decision has immediately raised eyebrows given the timing and context.
The screenshot confirms the move: AM Ghazanfar is marked with the substitution symbol indicating he has been replaced, and Danish Malewar — listed as a Batter — is the player who has come in as MI’s Impact Player for this match.
Why This Decision Is Drawing Attention
The sequence of events is what makes the Impact Player usage controversial in its timing. Santner walked off the field with a shoulder injury, creating an immediate gap in MI’s bowling attack — a left-arm spinner who had already been delivering his overs is now unavailable to continue. The logical expectation when a bowler is injured mid-match is that the Impact Player substitution would be used to bring in a like-for-like replacement or a bowler who can cover the lost overs.
Instead, MI have used the substitution on Ghazanfar — the Afghanistan leg-spinner who had been in the playing XI — and brought in Danish Malewar, a batter, as the Impact Player. This means MI have made a batting-focused substitution at a moment when their bowling resources have just been significantly weakened by Santner’s injury.
What the Substitution Suggests
The decision to substitute Ghazanfar out and bring Malewar in suggests one of two things. Either MI’s team management was already planning this substitution before Santner’s injury occurred and has proceeded with a pre-planned move regardless — which would mean they believe the bowling attack without Ghazanfar and with a potentially unavailable Santner is still sufficient for the situation. Or MI have made a deliberate calculation that the batting reinforcement Malewar provides outweighs the bowling cover that bringing in another spinner or pacer would offer — suggesting they are in a chase situation and need batting depth more urgently than bowling overs.
Santner’s Status Remains the Bigger Question
Regardless of the Impact Player decision, the fundamental issue for MI remains Santner’s availability. If he can return to the field and resume bowling despite the shoulder discomfort, the substitution decision looks more defensible. If he cannot bowl — meaning MI have both lost Ghazanfar from their spinning options through the substitution and lost Santner through injury — the bowling resources available to MI for the remainder of the match will be significantly stretched.
Will Jacks, Raj Bawa, Shardul Thakur and Mayank Rawat remain in the substitutes bench — none of whom have been activated as Impact Players given that the substitution slot has been used on Malewar. The Impact Player option has been spent. Whatever gaps exist in the MI XI from this point forward will need to be managed with the players currently on the field.
It is the kind of substitution decision that looks either very shrewd or very unfortunate depending entirely on how the next few overs unfold.