Kolkata, Sep 4 (IANS) Following the imposition of a two-year ban on leg-spinner Rohit Yadav for age discrepancies, the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) on Friday said it is very much committed to following rigorous age verification protocols for its registered players.

Yadav was pulled out of the India Under-19 squad for their upcoming red-ball and white-ball series against Australia, to be played in Rajkot and Ahmedabad later this month, after internal documentation audits flagged irregularities in his age records, prompting a broader investigation by the governing body’s authorities.

“The Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB), during its routine verification process, identified certain discrepancies/inconsistencies in the documents of the player Rohit Yadav.

“The matter was promptly reported to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) within due time. Following due examination, the BCCI took appropriate action and removed the player from the India Under-19 squad for the Australia series,” said the CAB in its statement on Friday.

It further said that a replacement player for Yadav has been picked, though they didn’t specify his name. “Thereafter, BCCI, in consultation with CAB, undertook further verification of the player’s age and supporting documents.

“Following the verification process, the player was replaced by another eligible player in the squad. CAB remains committed to ensuring proper verification and adherence to the prescribed regulations governing age-group cricket,” added the CAB.

Yadav was in India’s Under-19 men’s squad for the tour of Sri Lanka in July, including picking six wickets in the Youth Test. But he has now been barred from playing after documentation checks from the CAB revealed significant birth-record irregularities.

The investigation by CAB has discovered multiple conflicting records for Yadav, including three separate birth certificates listing different years of birth – 2006, 2007, and 2009 in various updates to his Aadhaar card records from 2014 to 2021. It is understood to have created an official age discrepancy of 27 months in Yadav’s case.

“Basically, for underage tournaments, the BCCI has made it mandatory to look into other update history, and they want digital birth certificates. So that is their policy, and according to that, we were also going through these other update checks and digital birth requirements for underage players.”

“So once we got into the process, many players have been found to have discrepancies. When we went into his other update history and everything, we found that there is a discrepancy there also. Now it’s for the board to take whatever decision they do,” he said to IANS on Friday.

Koley reiterated that the CAB will continue to take a firm stance against record falsification in junior developmental programs. “The national board is going to have a zero-tolerance policy as far as age discrepancies are concerned.

“So I don’t think they’ll entertain this, and they will inform us accordingly also. So this is the scenario basically, and we’ve taken our own decisions in CAB. But since he was in the India U19 team, the decision relating to him was taken by the board.”

In all, 65 players have been barred by the CAB from registration or transfers across the 2026–27 and 2027–28 domestic seasons due to age discrepancies and documentation irregularities. Among those sanctioned is former India Under-19 World Cup winner Ravi Kumar. The left-arm pacer delivered a standout spell of 4-34 in the 2022 Men’s U19 World Cup final against England in the Caribbean to help secure India’s fifth title.

But official CAB records list Ravi with a 45-month age discrepancy, which means all age-group participation records from the 2021/22 season through the 2025/26 campaign across junior and senior levels will be deemed invalid. Left-arm spin bowling all-rounder Vishal Bhatti, who has made three first-class and two List A appearances for Bengal, has also been flagged for the same charges.

–IANS

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