Age Fudging Resurfaces In Odisha Cricket, Two Players Get BCCI Ban

Cuttack: Two cricketers from Odisha have been banned for two seasons by the BCCI from playing domestic cricket after being found guilty of fudging their age in under-23 tournaments.

The banned cricketers identified as Somen Chand and Biswajit Mallick who were registered with the Odisha Cricket Association (OCA) have been banned from playing in 2021-22 and 2022-23 domestic cricket seasons.

After the BCCI move, the two players have been dropped from the State’s under-23 squad, which was in Kolkata for a tournament.

According to sources, after allegations of discrepancies in birth certificates of Chand and Mallick, their documents were sent for verification to Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) and Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) respectively.

However, the birth certificates submitted by the two players to the BCCI were reportedly found not matching with their original birth certificates.

Earlier in November, BCCI had imposed a two-year ban on two cricketers from Odisha- Rajesh Mohanty and Krishna Palai for allegedly submitting fake age certificates.

Recently, to curb the illegal practice, the OCA had rolled out an online mobile application with a central database containing information of all groups of registered players.