Bengal asked everyone for their documents, and 65 cricketers were barred

Rohit Yadav was in India’s Under-19 squad for the home series against Australia. He is not any more. The Bengal legspinner has been banned for two years for age fraud, and the paperwork that caught him says his real age and his registered age are 27 months apart.

The BCCI’s junior cricket committee has now named his replacements: Aryan Savsani of Saurashtra into the one-day squad, Tanmay Baloda of Haryana into the multi-day squad. Two names in, one name out, series unaffected. That is the small version of this story.

The bigger number is 64

Rohit’s case surfaced because the Cricket Association of Bengal ran a pre-season documentation drive on its registered players. The same drive barred 64 other cricketers for the same offence. Every BCCI-affiliated state unit has been told, and the bans are already in force.

Sixty-five players from one state association in one round of checks. Nobody was tipped off. Nobody confessed. Somebody simply asked everyone for their documents at the same time, which is the part worth sitting with.

A World Cup winner is on the list

The best-known name among the 64 is Ravi Kumar, the left-arm seamer who took 4 for 34 in the 2022 Under-19 World Cup final at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua. He had Jacob Bethell lbw in the second over of that innings. England were held to a total India chased down for a fifth title.

Ravi made his senior Bengal debut that same year and last played in 2023. His discrepancy is understood to be more than 40 months, and every age-group record he holds from his debut through the 2025-26 season is now void. Three and a half years is not a clerical slip on a form. It is the difference between an under-19 side and an under-23 one.

The BCCI has been here before

Age fraud in Indian age-group cricket is not a new file. In 2020 the board offered an amnesty: declare your real date of birth voluntarily, keep playing, no suspension, but face a ban if you were later found to have lied about it anyway. At Under-19 level, players are required to submit a birth certificate along with as much school and college documentation as they can produce.

The incentive on the other side is obvious enough. An extra two or three years of physical development in an age-group tournament is the difference between a contract and a return to club cricket, and the age-group circuit is where India’s selectors do their first looking. Bengal’s drive is one association checking its own books. The BCCI has 38 full members.

What the series looks like now

Australia’s Under-19s play three Youth ODIs at Rajkot on 18, 21 and 23 September, then two four-day matches, the first at Rajkot from 27 September and the second at Ahmedabad from 5 October. Lakshya Raichandani leads the one-day side with Yashbardhan Chauhan as his deputy, and the two swap roles for the longer games. Savsani and Baloda have under two weeks to settle into squads they were not in a week ago.

Rohit’s two years take him past his Under-19 eligibility entirely. Whatever the rest of his career looks like, it starts in 2028, in senior cricket, with this attached to his name.

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