The Board of Control for Cricket in India on Tuesday, in a press release, stated that players found guilty of fudging their birth certificates will be disqualified from all forms of cricket for a period of two years.
The new rules of the BCCI will come into effect from this domestic season, which just got underway. “The BCCI has a zero-tolerance policy for age fraud in sport and has taken strict action against cricketers found guilty of manipulating their date of birth certificates while registering for BCCI tournaments,” the BCCI stated.
“As conveyed to state associations at the start of the season, BCCI wishes to reiterate that from the 2018-’19 season, any cricketer who is found guilty of tampering his/her date of birth will be disqualified and barred from participating in any BCCI tournament for a period of 2 years i.e. 2018-’19 and 2019-’20 seasons.
Age fraud is a perennial phenomenon facing junior cricket in India. In his MAK Pataudi lecture in 2015, former India captain and India A coach Rahul Dravid had acknowledged age-fudging as a major problem in Indian cricket and welcomed BCCI’s decision to allow a player to compete in the U-19 World Cup only once.
The BCCI announcement comes on the back AIFF suspending footballer Gaurav Mukhi for six months on Monday for age fraud.
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In September, the BCCI had banned a Meghalya-bound Delhi player, Jaskirat Singh Sachdeva, for producing a fake birth certificate to play in an Under-19 tournament, PTI reported.