New Delhi: India Under-19 men’s leg-spinner Rohit Yadav has been handed a ban for two years following the discovery of significant age discrepancies in his birth documents by the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB).
Yadav was in India’s Under-19 men’s squad for the tour of Sri Lanka in July, including picking six wickets in the Youth Test. But he has now been barred from playing all forms of the game after documentation checks revealed significant birth-record irregularities.
It has also led to his immediate removal from the squad scheduled to play Australia Under-19 in five 50-over and two multi-day games later this month in Rajkot and Ahmedabad. “Yes, he has been withdrawn from the squads, after this was alerted to us by CAB. A word on who will be his replacement in the two squads will be known later,” said a BCCI source to IANS on Friday.
The investigation by CAB has discovered multiple conflicting records for Yadav, including three separate birth certificates listing different years of birth – 2006, 2007, and 2009 in various updates to his Aadhaar card records from 2014 to 2021. It is understood to have created an official age discrepancy of 27 months in Yadav’s case.
In the action taken by CAB, in all, 65 players have been barred from registration or transfers across the 2026–27 and 2027–28 domestic seasons due to age discrepancies and documentation irregularities.
Among those sanctioned is former India Under-19 World Cup winner Ravi Kumar. The left-arm pacer delivered a standout spell of 4-34 in the 2022 Men’s U19 World Cup final against England in the Caribbean to help secure India’s fifth title.
But official CAB records listed Ravi with a 45-month age discrepancy, which means all age-group participation records from the 2021/22 season through the 2025/26 campaign across junior and senior levels will be deemed invalid. Left-arm spin bowling all-rounder Vishal Bhatti, who has made three first-class and two List A appearances for Bengal, has also been flagged for the same charges.
(IANS)
