Aakash Chopra related a tale of potential age fraud from his days as a professional player on the home circuit.
When it comes to age-group cricket on the domestic circuit, age fraud is an issue that has long plagued cricket and is still rife today. Aakash Chopra, a former Indian cricket team opener, turned to social media to tell an amusing incident from his youth in response to recent cases that clearly demonstrated age fraud among players. He was making a statement on a recent incident in which a cricketer from Maharashtra received punishment for a related act.
“Minor modification, it seems I played as a U-16 player in a Delhi vs. Punjab game in which one opponent had a full beard…He said…hamare family mein beard thodi jaldi aa jati hai, (Facial hair develops extremely early in our family),” Chopra posted on Twitter. He was two years younger to me on paper than I was (I was 15; he was 13).
“Let me tell you a little story about my first encounter with Ambati Rayudu. It was an India A trip of the West Indies in 2003. Ambati Rayudu, a little child, was chosen there. In a video on his YouTube channel, Chopra said that the boy would have been around 16 years old at the time.
“The youngster is incredibly brilliant, and he was chosen in the hopes that he will be the next Sachin Tendulkar. He is similar to the prodigy in that he is able to bowl, field superbly, and bat.
