BCCI adopts new age-verification method

The BCCI has adopted a new digital X-ray based method for the age verification of players. The board believes that this will eliminate the cases of fraud during player selections at various age-group tournaments, the Mail Today reported. Approximately 900 cricketers below the age of 16 will be tested under the new method, which has been globally accepted as the "most accurate" among various age-determination methods.

The new method, knows as the TW3 (Tanner-Whitehouse3) bone maturation process, allows accurate estimation of a player's age by the analysis of x-rays of the lower end of the forearm of the players.

"This is a one-time test and it'll not be repeated in a player's entire career. Once he is certified as below 16 years for an under-16 tournament, his age will accordingly be calculated for the higher age-group tournaments like under-19 and under-25," BCCI consultant and Sport medicine expert Ashok Ahuja said.

"The age shown by TW3 method could vary by six months, either more or less. So, for borderline cases, players who are up to four months older than 16 years would be allowed to play in under-16 tournaments, but not older than that."

The TW3 method will replace the currently used Greulich & Pyle (GP) method, which was adopted by the BCCI seven years ago. The GP method age estimations were accurate in the range of two to four years.