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The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has been strict about age-discrepancy rules. Recently, they banned the Bengal and India U-19 National Cricket Team player Rohit Yadav for the same, as it has been seen that the cricketer has multiple dates of birth on his Aadhaar Card. Now, the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) has found 65 other cases.
Previously, the BCCI has enforced a highly strict, zero-tolerance crackdown on age fraud. The enforcement of these regulations has culminated in high-profile suspensions if any cricketer is found guilty of changing their date of birth certificate while registering for BCCI tournaments. Cricketers who are found guilty of manipulating his/her date of birth will be banned from participating in any BCCI tournament for a period of 2 years.
CAB bans 65 cricketers for age-fraud
Recently, CAB did an age verification process, where they first found Rohit Yadav and former India U-19 World Cup winner Ravi Kumar guilty of an age discrepancy. Apart from that, there have been 63 other players who have been on the list for age discrepancies. All 65 cricketers are ineligible for any tournament across the 2026–27 and 2027–28 domestic seasons.
In that list of 65 cricketers, there have been 12 cricketers who have previously featured for the Bengal side in age-group cricket and were then found to have major date-of-birth discrepancies.
Why did BCCI ban two U-19 cricketers?
Former U-19 World Cup winner Ravi Kumar comes from Aligarh and was key to India’s success in the 2022 Under-19 World Cup campaign in the West Indies. He picked four wickets in the final against England and finished the tournament with 10 wickets in 6 games.
Ravi Kumar (Code 7570) has been banned for 45 months due to a major age discrepancy. The documentation issues affect his domestic career from the 2021–22 season to 2025–26, covering Under-19, Under-23, and senior teams.
Rohit (Code 12438) has a 27-month ban for the same. His ban comes after false age registration scheduled during the 2024–25 (U-19) and 2025–26 (U-19, U-23) seasons. Recently selected for the India Under-19 squad ahead of a high-profile series against Australia. However, after he manipulated his date of birth, the apex board stepped in and banned him.
List of 65 cricketers being banned
Arun Kumar Chaurasiya (Code 9623) is the player with the largest age discrepancy record of 115 months (over 9.5 years) for the 2023–24 U-19 season. Then Mahipal Yadav (Code 12468), who has been banned for 97 months, while Prabhat Maurya (Code 6989) registered a 57-month discrepancy across multiple U-19 and U-23 seasons.
Other age-group players penalised include Amrit Raj Upadhyay (48 months), Dilshad Khan (46 months), Anubhav Tyagi (36 months), Kunal Kumar (35 months), Vineet Maurya (32 months), Kushal Gupta (26 months) and Parmit Singh (12 months).
The ban of 65 players for age discrepancies showcases the BCCI and CAB’s strict nature for age fraud in Indian and domestic cricket, as the BCCI has increased scrutiny of documentation across grassroots cricket to stop age fraud in domestic age-group cricket.
