The decade when TN Cricket was rocked by age scandal

Till the 1970s, there was no age categorization at the junior level in TN cricket with the only specification being 'schools cricket'. One only had to be a bona fide student of a school to play in the tournaments. The turn of the decade was marked by the creation of a number of age group categories. The 1980s saw various models being tried out - U17 and U15, U19 and U16 with U12/U13 too added later on. As the decade unfolded, this threw many different kinds of challenges and by the second half turned itself into an ugly scandal.

The 1980s saw Santhome dominate school cricket in the city but it was a phase that witnessed a number of its players caught in the fudging of age certificates. This came to light prior to the U15 state schools team's trip to Bangalore in November 1986. The TNCA was caught unawares when a stay was secured on a few players who had been selected for the state schools. A large majority of the players were from Santhome School and one from Gill Adarsh. Almost all of these 'over aged' players went on to play first division cricket for many years.

Earlier that season, at a schools tournament organised by Don Bosco, this overage issue had flared up specifically relating to Santhome players and the team sent a different set of players for that tournament. And then much to everyone’s shock, those same set of players produced a different age proof certificate for the U15 state schools selection. With parents of other talented boys protesting right after, the TNCA relented and banned the boys for that State tournament after having selected and announced the squad of 15. While the plan was for the standbys to gain automatic entry into the squad, the TNCA actually organised a retrial and the squad was chosen afresh.

PSBB KK Nagar’s Promodh Sharma was one of those players in the standbys that season. He remembers the turn of events that week in October 1986“As someone from PSBB, a not so recognized school in the cricketing fraternity, I always got the feeling that I was not watched at the nets by the selectors.  I believe that having an unknown kid bowl a few balls and having him bat for a few minutes may not be enough to spot the talent or potential. If the kid came from a school which did not have a cricketing pedigree, the chances diminished further.”

It was this feeling of Promodh and cricketers like him that Rajan Bala wrote that month way back in 1986 “During the trials, parents who were favoured got preferential treatment. Others were not even looked at and eliminated”.

“While I was in the camp and the thought process was that the standbys from the squad selected in October 86 would gain entry into the team after some of the players became ineligible following the over age issue, the TNCA conducted another trial and the standbys did not feature in that."

After the issue of over age came to light, Rajan Balan, in his story, questioned the very credibility of the trophies that Santhome had won in the previous years.

Hemant Srivatsa(https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2015/04/hemant-srivatsa-cricketer-of-1980s.html), owner of Murrays Auction, was a top cricketer in that era. He had played for South Zone and Indian Schools by the mid 1980s and had joined first division team Alwarpet when he was just 15years old. More importantly, he has always been very vocal about how the game should be played. Everytime he has spoken to this writer over the last decade, he has expressed happiness at having quit cricket very early in his life. It should not have been that way for he was a formidable fast bowler who could rip into the opposition but he was done in by the system. 

He remembers the sour events in the second half of the 1980s “Many of the kids may not have known what was going on behind them. They were too young especially the U15s. In those days, the school used to send the list of players to the TNCA. While the TNCA enquired the over aged cricketers in full public view and the manner of their questioning was appalling, what they missed was questioning the school and its then coach. They should have called the head of the institution, the physical director and the coach to the TNCA and addressed these questions to them in front of the students but they failed to do so.”

The players were excluded for that tournament but then normalcy returned after a few months. TNCA failed to go to the root of this problem and did not work towards cutting the root so this issue did not crop up again. 

LU Arun (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2021/06/psbb-lu-arun-state-schools-south-zone.html), who was in the original squad, featured in the reselected team that went to Bangalore where he showcased his talent with some brilliant knocks that helped him gain a place in the South Zone team. PB Anand of Gill Adarsh was the captain selected in the original squad but he was one of the players who had become ineligible because of the overage issue and a districts cricketer VJV Narasimhan captained the TN Schools to Bangalore. 

Just under a year later, this issue re-surfaced again this time in Thanjavur in the City vs Districts match. Aashish Kapoor was the captain of this team but a stay on the eve of the match sent jitters in the TNCA. They were without a captain and once again many players had become ‘ineligible’.

PR Ramakrishnan who was in the TN Ranji squad in the early 1970s was part of the Selection panel that was present for that match. He says he was shocked the first time he heard it. Aashish Kapoor was to be the captain of the city team in Thanjavur but he was termed ineligible. “There was no age group cricket in the 60s and 70s and hence there was no question of this (over age issue) arising in that phase when I played my cricket. However, when it did crop up soon after age group cricket was launched, it came as a big shock to me. Cricket was supposed to be a gentleman’s game and this was fudging of records and a clear fraud. They were not fit to be ‘Cricketers’. There were influential parents, and the coach of the schools played a big part in this for without their consent much of this could not have been done. It had become some sort of a ‘racket’.”

He remembers Chairman of Selectors M Srinivasan’s reaction that day “Srinivasan was very dedicated and fought for talented youngsters. When suddenly a bunch of players became ineligible, he panicked and was at a loss of words. But City had to find replacement players, and soon.”

Left arm spinner B Balaji, who had earlier captain TN U15 schools to victory, remembers that evening in September of 87 “The TNCA official made a rushed entry to my house at 7.30pm and asked me to take the bus at 9.30pm to Thanjavur. I was to go to Bangalore for the U22 match but I was redirected to the U17 match. All of us knew about the real date of birth of these players and what had been happening in the past but really none of us as young kids raised our voice on this issue till it came up on its own ahead of this match.”

Ramakrishnan also recalls the scenario in the districts “In Coimbatore, we had put in place a strong system very early on. We were tough from the very beginning and acted with clarity. In fact, GR Prasad would  always go to the head of the institution and get their endorsement ahead of every tournament. It was important for the head of the school to certify as per the birth certificate in the school’s records and school's head had to be made accountable as far as the birth certificate endorsement was concerned.”

Cricket was taking off in the country after India's victory in the 1983 World Cup and with every passing year parents began taking increasing interest in their son's cricketing activities which in some cases crossed the acceptable limits. It is something that Rajan Bala wrote way back then “Parents were seeing representative cricket for the State Schools as a platform to get admission into Engineering Colleges. And this triggered a series of actions that led to the overage scandal.”

Talking to this writer from the US, the most successful of club managers in the country in the last four decades, Bharath Reddy (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2019/11/bharath-reddy-players-man.html) who had just completed his playing career in the mid 1980s and had begun focusing on cricket at Jolly Rovers, said, “The talented boys who played true to their age were majorly impacted by this scandal. Imagine an 18 year old playing in a U17 match against a 15 or 16 year old boy. The over aged boy is clearly at an advantage and with an exaggerated performance through such methods at the U15 and U17 levels, he is likely to get more opportunities in cricket including a quicker jump into the first division league while the talented boys who lost out through such unfair methods would possibly have quit cricket in frustration and gone on to pursue academics.”

Promodh looks back at that year and says that the TNCA acted in a way to protect their interest like every other governing body has done over the years when staring at a crisis. “They took a decision and drafted in replacements as part of their damage control. In the process, some were lucky and others not so.”

R Vijayakumar, who was coached by AG Ram Singh and Rajan Bala in the 1980s and was a Tennis Coach in the US just over a decade ago, has been witness to a rampant over age issue in tennis in the US. He told this writer many years ago that there is a method to the madness. "Those that start this process at the U13 level carry this right up to the U17 level. In that period of 5-6 years (having started out at 11 or 12), the over aged kids would have won all the tournaments in U13, U15 and U17. Hence by the time they are 18 or 19, they are already seen as a local champion having achieved big success in the age group tourneys. That boosts their confidence levels as a winner. Hence there is a distinct advantage in playing against those aged way  below you especially in the 12-19 age group."

Bharath Reddy says that this over age issue was not restricted to Madras and that in the days he played for South Zone schools there were over aged boys playing from other states"‘Even though they had passed the schooling age, they would get back into school when they saw an opportunity to play at a national level like the Zonal Schools tourney or the Indian Schools trip or a schools match against a visiting team.”

Ranji Trophy winning captain and current Chairman of Selectors S Vasudevan too remembers the Schools match in Hyderabad in the early 1970s when school boys looked much older “Some of them seemed like they were 20 year olds!!!” 

As soon as the issue came to light, there was a lot of rumbling all around. While the players were replaced for the particular tournament, they came back later. Ramakrishnan is disappointed at the way the TNCA handled it then “The powers that be at that time had the opportunity to nip it in its bud at a very early stage.They should have taken strong action against the players. The TNCA should have arrested it then and there. It deserved big punishment in the longer term interest of the game, but really the TNCA did not do what it should have done at that time. ”

Hemant Srivatsa who captained and helped districts beat the city captained the U19 TN team as a player from the Districts (he was at GCT, Coimbatore) in the mid 1980s. He says that the moment this came to light, not once but on multiple occasions, the TNCA should have banned the school(s) from participating in inter school tournaments. "That would have set a strong precedence and been a deterrent. But tough decisions were not taken at that time.”

Promodh, who was impacted in the over aged issue back then, continues to play cricket now in Hongkong aged 50!!! He looks back 35 years after the over age issue first came to light and asks if the system in Madras / TN has changed at all in the period since he graduated out of school “The important question is what has been done since then to change the way the system works and to provide equal and fair opportunity to the talented. The system is changing albeit slowly with more accountability being brought in thanks to corporates who play a significant role in today’s cricket and being in the glaring eye of the social media.”

Bharath Reddy says that it has taken many years for a solution to be found.“It is only in the recent decade that bone test has come into play.”

Former Ranji Cricketer and coach of TN DJ Gokulakrishnan said the age old Issue of overage cricketers still  persist. "That's one of the reasons why on Rahul Dravid's recommendation, BCCI has come up with restrictions on a cricketer playing in only one u19 World Cup."

He says that the above restriction combined with a stringent punishment like a life ban for those found guilty is a welcome development.

Promodh(https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2020/05/promodh-sharma-cricketer-turned.html), who has faced many a corporate challenge in building a 80 million dollar global business in the garment sector, says that the system of bias and the role of godfathers still exist but he is confident that sooner than later this too will evolve and change to a format to reward the meritorious alone “We must believe we will see a day where talent has the final word over the power of position or social standing within and outside the confines of the ruling body.”