Supreme Court rejects plea to fix cut-off date for eligibility in domestic cricket tournaments

The Supreme Court on May 24 (Tuesday) denied a hearing of the plea for giving directives to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to fix the cut-off date for age eligibility in domestic cricket tournaments in India. A bench of Justice S A Nazeer and P S Narasimha denied the plea and said that these matters should be looked into by the BCCI.

It is not in our hands all these things: Supreme Court to the petitioner

“How can we entertain this petition? It’s not in our hands all these things. No, you withdraw with liberty to approach. We don’t know much about cricket also. Please withdraw, we can’t go into all this,” the bench was quoted by The New Indian Express.

As per the filed by Additya Sharma, it sought directives for the board to set the eligibility cut-off date for April 1 rather than September 1 each year. As per the plea, an advertisement published during March/April reads that players born between April 1 and August 31 are ineligible to compete in age group category tournaments, and only players born between September 1 and March 31 are eligible.

Meanwhile, the domestic cricket in India is slated to make a comeback with the quarterfinals, semifinals, and final match of the 2022 Ranji Trophy matches slated to begin on June 6. Bengal, Jharkhand, Mumbai, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, and Punjab to play the quarterfinal matches, before heading towards the semi-finals and final. The final match of the tournament will be played from June 22 to 26.