Sport - Cricket

BCCI may be doing injustice by merging the under-15 and under-17 tournaments

The Working Committee of the BCCI has finally approved the revamping of junior cricket.

By knocking off the under-15 and under-17 tournaments and retaining only under-16 tournament, the underlying principle BCCI might have is that of boosting quality.

This is precisely the reason why there is a need to have elite and plate divisions which have been introduced in the under-19 and under-17.

By merging both the under-17 and under-15 tournaments, the BCCI may be doing injustice to the boys who will be crossing 16.

Ideally the BCCI ought to have knocked off the under-16 tournament, as the fudging of age with the introduction of the IPL and the money coming in with it, has become rampant.

To address the issue of having under-16 instead of under-15 and under-17, the boys crossing 16 will have to compete with the boys of two age groups in under-19.

Most of the States prefer 18-year-olds in the under-19 tournaments.

Unfortunately, the performers of the under-16 who would have otherwise continued to be in the under-17 category will now be forced to compete with the under-18 and that will kill their enthusiasm.

With so much of hullabaloo that was created after India under-19 won the World Cup, it now transpires that at least two cricketers going by the BCCI records may have played too long in the under-19 category.

The Uttar Pradesh left-hand batsman Tanmay Srivastava seems to have played in under-14 for his State when he was 10-years-old! And played five years for the under-19 when the maximum limit as per the board is four years.

Another player of the team, Sourabh Tiwary of Jharkhand played the first under-14 game for his State when he was 11 and didn’t play the under-17 for the state. Ravindra Jadeja of Saurashtra played two World Cup tournaments and Piyush Chawla did what no teenager in this country has done.

In 2002 Chawla went on the tour of Sri Lanka with the under-17 in early October, returned soon to play under-19 for U.P. and within seven weeks was playing for the India under-15 in the Asia Cup.

So in a span of three months he played all three tournaments — under-17, under-19 and under-15. Then there is the case of Ali Murtuza who played for Uttar Pradesh under-22 when he wasn’t even 14!

The solution could be to have only inter-State school tournaments which will be an umbrella for all school-goers under-17, so that overage cases could be tackled, as the age-offenders would tarnish the image of their school if found guilty.

The present system not only encourages the boys not to attend school but it is also becoming increasingly difficult to check their ages as all the medical tests are inconclusive.

In inter-school matches one can hold both under-14 and under-17, so that there is an official follow up on a performer.

With the knocking off under-15 and under-17 tournaments, a 13-year-old who would have played under-15 will have to compete with the under-16 and the 16-year-old boy will lose out the chance to the 18-year-olds in the under-19 tournament.

The decision of the BCCI to have inter-school matches needs to be applauded but the real solution would be to have inter-state school tournaments of under-17 followed by the under-19 BCCI tournament.

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