Age-old problem hits Delhi Vijay Merchant team

The Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) has a knack of finding itself in controversy. And this time it is over age fudging.

The Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) has a knack of finding itself in controversy. And this time it is over age fudging. A civil petition was filed last week against selecting overage players in the under-16 team. Rajiv Gupta, who got into a brawl with under-19 selector Vinay Lamba a couple of months ago over his son's last-minute ejection from the squad, has filed the petition claiming some of the players have altered their age. He has submitted documents in the court to support his allegations. A copy of the documents is available with the Hindustan Times.

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In a couple of cases, the players, according to their age published in the National School Games (NSG) in 2006-07, are above 16 years of age. One player's date of birth, according to the NSG in 2006-07 is 6/9/93, which means he is above 17 now. In another player's case, the NSG 2006-07 show his date of birth as 22/8/94.

As per that, he should have crossed the age as on September 1, well before the under-16 Vijay Merchant Trophy started. In the case of two other members of the U-16 squad, the documents show different ages were mentioned in two different editions of the National School Games.

While one's date of birth, according to 2009-10 edition of the National School Games, is 5/11/95, he had participated in the 2008-09 NSG with a date of birth of 5/11/94. Another player's age, as per the petition, shows the difference of one year. He gave the date of birth as 2/9/95 at the 2009-10 NSG but 2/9/1994 in the 2008-09 edition.

The DDCA, when contacted, said they have informed their lawyer. “We have not gone through the issue but have forwarded it to our lawyer,” said Sneh Bansal, general secretary of the DDCA.