5 Things you need to know about Grant Baldwin

5 Things you need to know about Grant Baldwin: The crowd as well as everybody watching the historic day and night Test match between Australia and New Zealand were taken by surprise on Thursday when Australia fielded their massage therapist Grant Baldwin in place of Mitchell Starc. Usually, he massaged the players and now as a 12^th man, he was fielding for the Australian team. This decision to bring him as a substitute was taken by the captain Steve Smith as James Pattinson and Steven O’Keefe were released by the time to fulfill their respective states’ Sheffield Shield duties. Jon Wells, a former Perth shield player had come in as the 12^th man in the Perth test.

The ICC rules regarding substitution in Test matches are as follows: “Only those nominated as substitute fielders shall be entitled to act as substitute fielders during the match, unless the ICC Match Referee, in exceptional circumstances, allows subsequent additions.

1.2.3 All those nominated including those nominated as substitute fielders must be eligible to play for that particular team and by such nomination the nominees shall warrant that they are so eligible.

1.2.4 In addition, by their nomination, the nominees shall be deemed to have agreed to abide by all the applicable ICC Regulations pertaining to international cricket and in particular, the Clothing and Equipment Regulations, the Code of Conduct for Players and Player Support Personnel (hereafter referred to as the ICC Code of Conduct), the Anti-Racism Code for Players and Player Support Personnel, the Anti-Doping Code and the Anti-Corruption Code.”

Here are the 5 Things you need to know about Grant Baldwin:

1. Birth:

Grant Christopher Baldwin was born on July 18, 1987.

2. Profession:

Grant Baldwin is the assistant to the Australian team manager, Gavin Dovey and also is a regular at the fielding sessions for Australia in the nets.

3. Cricket experience:

Grant Baldwin has represented the Victorian Second XI and the Victorian Emerging players and was quite good at cricket. But since 2008 he hasn’t played professional cricket. An Australian journalist Adam Baldwin tweeted, “Grant Baldwin (no relation) was a star junior. Made 214* in U/12s. Not surprised to see him wearing the baggy green.”

4. Passion for other sports:

Grant Baldwin was not only interested in cricket but showed his passion towards the game of football when he had registered himself for the AFL (Australian Football League) draft.

5. His experience in a tour match:

Prior to this, Grant Baldwin also has bowled an over during a tour match in South Africa last year. Grant Baldwin has also administered the team’s fielding drills during practices and also fielded in another tour match in UAE. In 2013, Grant Baldwin was named the 12th man of an Australian XI that played against Indian President’s XI in Chennai as Australia were playing against West Indies in a T20 the same day.

Previous unusual instances:

• Sachin Tendulkar once as a 13-year old had fielded for the Pakistani side in a match against India at the Brabourne Stadium.
• Paul Collingwood, the then assistant coach of England came on to the field against the West Indies owing to injuries in the squad.
• Mandeep Singh fielded for South Africa A against his own team India A in a match recently.