New rules initiated by the BCCI to enforce control over age-related frauds
What's the story
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) of late has been taking several stringent measures and policies to curb the growth of an abnormal situation within cricketing spheres inside the country.
With several new rules introduced and old ones amended, the board is taking steps in the right decision. The new mandate regarding players found guilty of age-fudging is one of them.
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The malpractice of forging ages to favor selection is rampant in domestic age-group cricket for the lower ages, where coaches and parents have been found to encourage their wards to fudge their age, despite the risks involved.
Hence the problem can be thought of as starting at the root of cricket's development itself, with the menace finding space initially in the lower age-levels, and as the player develops with time, the crime climbs the ladder with him as well.
The 2016 Under-19 World Cup held in Bangladesh was a very well organized tournament, but then it came to light for all the wrong reasons, and it was that of reports of several overage cricketers masquerading as U-19 boys.
Even team India were not to be spared, as a few allegations even threatened to take the shine off from the team's eventual runners-up finish.
It was after these events that Dravid spoke famously on the need to put an end to the "scourge of overage players" during the annual Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi Lecture held at that time. He had pointed out that age-fudging is just as equally bad as fixing. He had also suggested that a centralized database of birth certificates would help tackle the issue.
"The truth is that the player who has faked his age might make it at the junior level not necessarily because he is better or more talented, but because he is stronger and bigger,” Dravid had said at the lecture. “We all know how much of a difference a couple of years can make at that age. That incident will have another ripple effect: an honest player, deprived of his place by an overage player, is disillusioned. We run the risk of losing him forever."
Under the Indian legal system, it is a criminal offense to provide false birth certificates. The BCCI has now decided to adopt the same penalty wherever applicable.
The details
It has been announced that from now on, players who are reported to being guilty of age-related frauds will face a two-year ban from taking part in any domestic competition and the possibility of a criminal charge from the BCCI.
The new decision is an updated version of the previously existing one-year ban, with criminal charges introduced in the punishment for the first time. The decision to double the penalties was taken by the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) at a meeting in Delhi in May.
"After a proper inquiry, players who are found to have submitted false/tampered birth certificates will be banned from all BCCI tournaments for two seasons," the CoA explained as per the minutes of the May 18 meeting. The minutes of the meeting also stated that the BCCI may initiate criminal action against the concerned player and/or any other person responsible for submitting false/tampered birth certificates.
What's next
BCCI's latest decision would certainly be drawing a page out of Dravid's book, in an what has been labeled as an honest and efficient attempt to put an end to the problem. CoA hopes that the fear of losing two years of cricket and a criminal charge would act as a strong deterrent against such practices.