Hailakandi, March 19: The Silchar District Sports Association has disqualified Cachar High School and Silchar Collegiate School from the Baidya-nath Trophy (under-15) inter-school cricket tournament on charges of age fudging.
The decision to disqualify the teams was taken at a meeting of the cricket section of the DSA at SM Dev Stadium in Silchar last night.
The schools, which clashed in the quarterfinals, lodged written complaints against each other alleging fudging of age. While Silchar Collegiate School alleged that Vishal Barhoi of Cachar High School was past the age limit of 15 years, the latter made the same accusation against Pritam Sinha of Collegiate.
DSA cricket secretary Arijit Gupta said, ?The DSA has age proofs of both players and they are above 15 years.?
Both Vishal and Pritam have represented Silchar district. Pritam has even represented the state.
The revelation has cast a shadow on the Assam Cricket Association?s tall claims of maintaining a strict vigil on age fudging through age verification tests.
Describing the incident as ?unfortunate?, DSA general secretary Babul Hore said the timing of the meet was made to coincide with the HSLC examinations ?only to ensure that students appearing in the exams, who are mostly above the age of 15, do not get an opportunity to play in it?.
Silchar Collegiate School expressed reservations about the DSA?s decision. ?The decision was unfortunate because we have never tried to fudge Pritam?s age,? Tapan Das, the school?s sports teacher said.
Cachar High School defeated Collegiate in the quarters, but after the disqualification, Holicross School, who were supposed to meet the Cachar school in the second semifinal today, have directly made it to the final. They will meet South Point School in the final on Wednesday or Thursday.
South Point booked a berth in the final edging past Govt Boys HS School by a single run yesterday. South Point batted first and were restricted to 112 for seven in 25 overs. In reply, the Govt Boys? School were all out for 111 runs in 24.2 overs.
Needing only 12 runs to win from 18 balls the Govt boys lost four wickets, scoring 10 runs in 2.1 overs. For South Point, Jyotish Verma and Sanjeev Chetri were the notable scorers. Debashish Deb of Govt Boys scalped three for 20. Abid Ahmed Laskar and Khalid Ahmed Mazumdar were the notable Govt boys? scorers. Sanjeev Chetri and Navajyoti Choudhury shared three wickets each.
