OCA Gears Up To Curb Age Fudging, Promote Grassroots Cricket In Odisha

Cuttack: The Odisha Cricket Association (OCA), which is plagued by the age fudging of the players, has finally come up with a solution to stop the illegal practice.

Briefing the media after the annual general body meeting here this afternoon, OCA secretary Sanjay Behera said that a decision has been taken to keep the detailed information of all groups of the registered players in the central database of a mobile application. This online app will prevent the players from fudging their age.

Apart from this, the OCA teams will visit the district headquarters and supervise the registration process of the players to curb the age-fudging at the district level. The app will have the performance records of various trial matches and all other matches played by players at club and district levels.

“To begin with, OCA will form intra-club in the grassroots level with 10 clubs from each district to ensure that the deserving player gets selected from the club level to the district level team and subsequently to the state team,” Behera added.

Asked about the steps taken to popularise cricket in the state and identify the budding talents, Behera said the OCA will resume the inter-school and club cricket tournaments and groom the budding cricketers at the grassroots.

Admitting that the domestic cricket is not being organised at regular intervals, he said the OCA has come up with a Vision 2024 in which it will organise inter-club tournaments by selecting 10 clubs from each district from where players will be selected for the district-level tournaments. Besides, the inter-school tournaments will be organised in the districts for the selection of the players.