OCA age fudging: 19 cricketers banned for 1 year by BCCI

Mumbai/Bubaneswar: More instances of age fudging in Odisha Cricket Association (OCA) came to fore after Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) banned as many as 19 cricketers from the State for misrepresenting their ages. OCA Secretary Asirbad Behera confirmed that citing discrepancies in the birth certificate, the BCCI has issued the ban.

Owing to the mismatch in age given earlier and the age mentioned in the affidavits submitted now the BCCI has banned 12 players from the under-19 team and 7 woman cricketers.

7 woman cricketers of the senior team have been served the ban by BCCI. The banned cricketers have been identified as Banalata Mallick, Shilpa Swain, Sushree Dibyadarshini, D. Janaki Reddy, Sasmita Mahalik, Pragyan Paramita Das and Sarojini Giri.

Similarly, 12 players of the Under-19 Odisha Cricket team have also been banned for 1 year in connection with age fudging. The Under-19 players are Suraj Singh, Khyamasagar Bal, Pratyush Mohapatra, Suryakant Samal, Harshit Rathore, Rajesh Mohanty, Dhirendra Singh, Nishikant Rout, Dibyaranjan Sahoo, Sourav Gouda, Biswajeet Das and Sunil Roul.

Moreover, 4 Ranji players of Odisha have also been issued show-cause notice over age misrepresentation of age. The cricketers who have been served notices have been identified as Alok Sahu, Ashutosh Das, Rajesh Dhupar and Shubham Naik.

Last month, the BCCI dropped six players of Odisha under-19 squad declared for Vinoo Mankad One-Day Zonal League (East Zone) Trophy in connection with the age fudging.

Also Read: BCCI drops 6 Odisha cricketers from U-19 team

The players who have been dropped from the squad were- Suryakanta Samal, Harsit Rathore, Khyama Sagar Bal, Suraj Singh and Pratyush Mohapatra.

According to sources, the decision of BCCI came after it found the age certificate submitted by the players for this season did not match with the documents submitted by them in the last season.