MUMBAI: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced Tuesday that any cricketer found guilty of manipulating their date of birth certificates while registering for board-sanctioned tournaments, will be suspended with a two-year ban. In an official statement, the BCCI declared having ‘a zero-tolerance policy for age fraud in sport’.
The board had taken strict action in September this year against Delhi-origin Meghalaya cricketer Jaskirat Sachdeva for producing a fake birth certificate in order to play in an Under-19 competition.
Earlier, India U-19 and India A head coach Rahul Dravid had raised the issue of age fudging on several occasions including his 2016 MAK Pataudi lecture, expressing serious concern over the issue affecting the quality of junior cricket in the country. He had welcomed the board’s move of allowing a player to participate in just one Under-19 World Cup tournament, even if he is eligible to play two such events.
Age fraud has also been seen in Indian football recently as well with one-match wonder boy Gourav Mukhi of the ISL side Jamshedpur FC, banned by the AIFF for wrongfully claiming himself to be a 16-year-old despite his physique not matching up to his age.
