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Rizvi seeks clarification on age issue

The protest led to the MSSA conducting bone tests on the four Rizvi boys. What was surprising was the fact that the school has yet to receive any sort of intimation from the schools body.

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With Rizvi Springfield having four of their students suspended from their U-16 MSSA Harris Shield encounter against Don Bosco (Matunga) after being found to be overaged, the Bandra school has asked Mumbai Schools Sports Association (MSSA) and Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) to give them a clear picture as far as their rules and regulations were concerned.

At a meeting held at the college on Thursday, trustee Javed Rizvi and coach Raju Pathak addressed members of the press saying that they felt their school has always been targetted due to their superior track record in the tournament. The Bandra school has won six of the last seven tournaments.

"We had Satyalaksh Jain last year and this time, four boys. The funny part was that Jain passed the TW3 test that the MCA follows. He played in the Mumbai U-16 side. The MSSA follows a bone test that he failed. So, a player who can play for the city is now suddenly 'elder' just because he plays for a certain school," said Rizvi.

It may be noted that the MCA released a list of 34 players who were declared ineligible to play in U-16 tournaments as they failed to pass the BCCI's Tanner-Whitehouse 3 method (TW3). With the test being conducted in October, the state cricket body did not inform any of the schools that the players mentioned could not play MSSA-organised tournaments.

Four players from the list are from Rizvi Springfield and the reason why Swami Vivekanand (Borivli) filed a protest against the Bandra school.

The protest led to the MSSA conducting bone tests on the four Rizvi boys. What was surprising was the fact that the school has yet to receive any sort of intimation from the schools body.

"It's only through the media that we came to know. What's strange is that is that two of these boys have played for Mumbai and have passed bone tests previously. They (Swami Vivekanand) didn't protest against us fielding overage players in this match. They questioned us fielding two boys who were part of that list of 34. But we weren't told by the MCA too," said Pathak.

Rizvi further added that disparity between the MCA and the MSSA has now led to his squad being reduced by four. "We're down to 14 now. This could have been avoided if either of the two bodies told us not to field the players in that list. We also have players in the Mumbai squad, so we could have even less numbers. What can we do? Plus, how is it the school's responsibility to check which boy is overaged. We will only take the birth certificate as proof."

Pathak cited double standards in MSSA 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 genuine birth certificates but have failed the TW3 test. It's not fair. Another problem is that even if the schools decide to conduct the test, the MCA might later want to conduct a test of their own."

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