Shane Warne accuses Munaf Patel for faking his age

Former Australian legendary cricketer Shane Warne is always known to be associated with controversies. And he sparked another controversy with his comments on Tuesday, while commentating in the ODI match between England and Sri Lanka at Trent Bridge. Warne made a shocking allegation that the Indian pacer Munaf Patel faked his age while playing in the Indian Premier League.

Munaf had played under Warne in the Rajasthan Royals in the first edition of the IPL. When Warne had asked him about his age, Patel in his response asked him whether he wanted to know his real age or his IPL age. He told Warne subsequently, that his real age was 35, and the age he had used to register for the IPL was forged, and set at 29.

The Baroda lad hasn’t yet commented on this controversy and if proven true, he could well face severe punishment which could include debarment from cricket for life. Munaf was a part of the Indian team in the World Cup 2011 and one of the leading wicket-takers of the tournament. He ended the tournament as India’s third highest wicket-taker behind Zaheer Khan and Yuvraj Singh with 11 victims.

He had featured in 13 Test matches, 70 One Day Internationals (ODIs) and 3 T20 internationals for India and had claimed 35, 86 and 4 wickets respectively across the three different formats of the game.

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If proven true, it could be an added shame for Indian cricket as another member of the 2011 squad, S Sreesanth having faced match fixing charges and a subsequent lengthy ban from all forms of cricket.