The MCA and MSSA have always gone by the age given in the player's birth certificate. It was only on Wednesday that the Cricket Improvement Committee (CIC) of the MCA met and decided to follow the TW3 method for school tournaments too.
Even as Swami Vivekanand International School (Borivli) lodged a protest against Rizvi Springfield (Bandra) for fielding overaged players in the Harris Shield Elite Division (boys U-16) tournament, dna has learnt that the Mumbai Schools Sports Association (MSSA) will not be able to take any action against the Bandra school.
The Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) released a list of 34 players who have been declared ineligible to play in U-16 tournaments as they failed to pass the BCCI's Tanner-Whitehouse 3 method (TW3), which determines the age of a child based on the growth of bones in the hand, especially the wrist. Four players from the list are from Rizvi Springfield and are playing in the Harris Shield tournament.
The MCA and MSSA have always gone by the age given in the player's birth certificate. It was only on Wednesday that the Cricket Improvement Committee (CIC) of the MCA met and decided to follow the TW3 method for school tournaments too.
"Since the rule was decided only on Wednesday, it cannot be used to ban any Rizvi player from participating in the tournament," a highly-placed source in MCA told this paper.
However, MSSA cricket secretary Deepak Talim was all for banning the players. "If the players are overaged, then they shouldn't be playing. If they are banned from MCA because they are over-aged, then how can they play another U-16 tournament? They knew before the start of the tournament that they were overaged," he said.
It may be recalled that last season, another Rizvi player was banned by the MSSA for one year for having a faulty birth certificate. The MSSA banned him even though he passed the TW3 test and then played BCCI's U-16 state tournament for Mumbai.
Rizvi coach Raju Pathak cited double standards in Talim wanting to ban the players. "They (MSSA) need to decide which rule they want to follow. One year they ban a player who has passed the test, but had a faulty birth certificate. Next year, they want to ban players who have a genuine birth certificate, but have failed the TW3 test. It's not fair," he said.
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