Sikkim U-19 Cricketer Faces 2 Year Ban from BCCI

Manoj Gurung, an under 19 cricketer from Sikkim faces a BCCI ban for tempering his birth certificate. The young cricketer from Sikkim faces a 2 years ban on his play and along with him, the Sikkim Cricket Association too faces a BCCI warning.

The forgery in Manoj’s birth certificate came into light when it was found that in the year 2014 when Manoj registered for the Cooch Behar Trophy, he mentioned his birth year as 1997. According to this birth year, Manoj should be ageing 21 now, but his latest certificate says he is born in 2000. This proves that there has been some sort of tempering in the age mentioned in the birth certificate.

This resulted into Manoj facing a 2-year ban for age fudging and this denotes, Manoj will not be allowed to take part in any BCCI-affiliated tournament for that 2 year period.

However, this incident of the cricketer facing ban has raised questions as to who is actually responsible for the fault in the birth certificate. Is it actually Manoj who was tempering his birth certificate or is it Sikkim Cricket Association SCA selection procedure?

The BCCI informed the SCA about the punishment through a letter and also promised to hand down sterner punishments in the future if such activities were carried out by cricketers.

After the announcement of the punishment, the Sikkim Cricket Association Spokesperson Mr. Roshan Prasad said that they were only being asked by the BCCI to submit the PAN and Aadhar Card of players and they have no authority assigned by the BCCI to assess the birth certificates of the players. It is BCCI actually who have all records and compare the history of players. It is the BCCI who has the sole authority to cross verify the age of players.