Even Passports and government provided identity cards are found to be fake in so many cases. So one cannot apply the logic in Europe to a scenario in some Asian countries in all cases
Oh, I totally agree with that, Adi. I wasnt suggesting in the slightest that European models should be used for this, in fact I am taking the point further and saying you can also not compare the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan with India. I also am not arguing that India arent doing anything, far from it actually as they seem to really be trying their best to tackle it, merely highlighting that its unfair to then say Pakistan or others are doing nothing to tackle it, when its arguable if they were doing exactly the same as India there would be no tangible positive results from it.
It seems when you look at cases, it is relatively easy to obtain fake passports, IDs and birth certificates. As an interesting example, I know an Indian girl from back home who moved to Britain as a youngster, who celebrates two birthdays. He parents asked for her to be registered when she was born, and due to some administration error or what not it took months and months for the document to be produced; the birth date on it is the date of registration, not the date she was born. And when she applied for British Citizenship she had to produce that document..... so officially, she is 6 months younger than her actual age. I dont know how common this is, but I guess it must be fairly common?
Either way, the BCCI used to seemingly accept those documents as proof, but the Manjot Kalra suspension changed it. It seems that he was able to get all the documents saying he was born one year after he was to get into the U-19 World Cup team (he hit a 100 in the final). So he was too old for the bone test, the BCCI checked his IDs and verified his age. But people who knew and played with him in Delhi school cricket knew him from his very early years, knew when he'd started school etc. So they complained and produced evidence, and he got banned. The smoking gun was his school registration and national exam results on leaving school; all had been done when he was 5, all had his date of birth one year earlier. Now the BCCI have set up a task force that goes to schools. The process seems to be... passport, ID, Tax number; if this checks out, they send investigators randomly to the school the player attended, and if there is no "Class X" record of his exams or original school registration, its a ban.
So, cast your mind on that. Would Rashid Khan be able to produce that document is he was telling the truth? He was educated in a refugee camp, so almost certainly not. Same with Afridi. These players could be telling the truth but would get bans solely on their upbringing. Using this system would be totally unfair on them.
Hence I mention the dalit issue. How many uneducated players who grew up in absolute poverty would be able to prove their school registration from 15 years previous? Even if they went to school, which may not be the case, would such schools in slums keep academic records like this? It would be very easy for someone discriminating on class to use the BCCI whistle-blower process to make a complaint against someone from this background, and regardless of the merits of the case, the person would not be able to satisfy any of the requirements, and would be instantly banned.
So even with India doing as much as they possibly can, it only really works on the basis that those cricketers they are testing come from high education/high social status. The system fails at the first hint of a player being outside that sphere.
