Berry's unique suggestion for Test cricket

Remember the 'Super Sub', that short-lived innovation in one-day international cricket that was scrapped in 2006 just nine months after its introduction?

It's not coming back to the 50-over game anytime soon, but former Victoria wicketkeeper and South Australia coach Darren Berry says a similar idea should be introduced to the longer forms of the game.

Berry says the injection of a substitute player - the 12th man - at the completion of both teams' first innings in first-class and Test cricket could add an exciting new element to the game.

"This concept could be trialled at Sheffield Shield level and could prove to be hugely beneficial for a team to interchange a fast bowler with a spin bowler as the pitch wears during a game," Berry wrote in a column for News Corp.

"It would add some unpredictability to Sheffield Shield and Test cricket plus create more opportunity for young spinners who rarely get exposed at domestic level in our country.

"Alternatively, an extra bowler could be injected at the expense of a batsman and vice versa.

"Teams don’t have to change their make up after the first innings, but this provides them the option to make a strategic change if they wish."

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Former Victoria wicketkeeper Darren Berry // Getty Images

Berry has had a long involvement in the game as a player and a coach and is regarded by Steve Waugh as the best player never to wear the Baggy Green.

He played over 150 first-class matches in a 15-year playing career and has coaching experience with Victoria, South Australia and the Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League.

Substitutes in red-ball cricket would not be expected to create the same issue that befell the Super Sub in the white ball game; that it unfairly favoured the team that won the toss.

The Super Sub was introduced in July 2005 in a bid to shake-up ODI cricket, but was discarded by the ICC in March the following year.

Teams were required to name their substitute player before the toss, which was designed to encourage the selection of versatile allrounders in the role of Super Sub.

But teams often selected a specialist bowler or batsman as their substitute, meaning the player often went unused if a team completed their sub's specialist discipline first.

That meant the outcome of the toss carried greater importance, with the losing captain often left with an unusable substitute against a team that could call on 12 players over the course of the match.

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Umpire Rudi Koertzen makes the Super Sub signal // Getty Images

Australia's captain Ricky Ponting was a vocal critic of the rule and after being asked to field first in a match against Sri Lanka in January 2006 said of his substitute Brett Dorey: "He goes out of the game and you're playing 11 against 12".

He later added: "I don't think there's anything lost by going back (to the old rule). We'll keep trying and making the best of it but I'd like to see us going back to 11 against 11 for the (2007) World Cup."

Just three weeks later, the ICC signalled its plans to discontinue the rule.

"The intention ... was to encourage teams to make greater use of all-rounders in the ODI game," ICC General Manager-Cricket Dave Richardson said at the time.

"In practice, teams have elected to nominate a specialist player as the substitute and this is placing undue importance on winning the toss.

"There is no desire to create a situation where 12 players are used to do the job of 11 so we did not support the alternate view of allowing substitutes to be nominated after the toss."