Are Pakistani cricketers few years older than their age on paper?

In general, the registration of birth (and death too) were not mandatory in the then Pakistan after it got liberation on 14th August 1947. The situation was not very rosy in early days of India in this criteria. In Bangladesh what I found that villagers who were about 80% of the population at the time of our liberation in 1971 were not even aware of registration and there we no official record keeping introduced in our part of the world.

Our kids in Pakistan time used to attend school when they would attain 6 or 7 years of age in Primary Section graded as Class-I (the nursery or preparatory classes were introduced in the 1970s). After 10 years of Primary & Secondary, having 5-years each, the students would be either 16 or 17 years old when they would pas SSC and then enter College for the next 2-years to pass HSC. The illiterate parents would enroll their child in Class-I having the date of birth (DoB) selected out of whim. The year of birth were also sometimes tempered to show the kid a few years younger, this is to ensure that the kid remains eligible to get government employment even he/she flunk a few years in school or college.

Our family were lucky since my father was in PAF where mandatory registration of the birth of child made us to have exact DoB. But when I came to Bangladesh to my horror I found that relatives from rural areas were not sure about their DoB. Even today many of our employees are having same dilemma. They may have accurate DoB but they would allege that the teachers advised their parents to lower the DoB during enrollment.

There were a joke from Japan that I read in one of our magazines that goes like: On 1st of January many babies will be born in BD, since we can see many DoB as 01-01-Year..lol! You can well imagine that the parents may have told something like "my kid was born in 1986 but I don't remember the exact day and month" and the teacher would put the DoB as 01-01-1986.

Quote: "The Birth and Death Registration Act was amended in December 2004 and enacted from July 2006....Registration of birth and death started in Bangladesh. Since 1996, UNICEF has assisted universal birth registration. The birth registration rates for children aged under-five increased from 9.8 per cent in 2006 to 53.6 per cent in 2009." Un-quote (Abridged)

You can see that the weak infrastructure of the governments in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh coupled with high percentage of illiterate guardians made the DoB of our kids not very accurate, particularly from rural areas. Therefore, your allegation may contain some truth, but it can not be universal truth that all of our cricket players enroll a few years less on paper. Most of our cricket players are students or graduates of Bangladesh Krira Shiksha Pratisthan (BKSP the institute was established in 1986 with the objective of developing sports in Bangladesh). Therefore, the present day's BD players' are having some truth to their registered-age and Mushfiqur Rahman and other players look baby-face..lol!

I can not vouch for the age of the Pakistani players. May be they are not tempering their age and if there is a few cases then those are for above mentioned reasons, those are good for India and Bangladesh too for kids born in 1960s or 1970s, but very unlikely for kids born since 1980s.

Hope this helps.

Yes it is indeed true in case of many Pakistani players.The practice of tampering the ages was common those days in Pakistan & so most of the players from Pak haven't really given their real ages.Younis khan is said to be born in 1978 but actually he was born on 1976 meaning he is 36 now & not 34.

Afridi himself had accepted that his age had been concealed but only by 2 years.But if u look at his 100 of 37 balls video it's clear that he was actually 21 when he hit that century.That is also another reason why we see Afridi getting removed from the team,his reflexes getting weakened.He is 37 now & not 32.32 was never a proper age of retirement as well.

The below links tells u more about his age:

http://www.pakpassion.net/ppforum/showthread.php?t...

http://www.indiancricketfans.com/showthread.php?t=...

But regardless whether he was 16 or 21 when he hit that fastet ever 37 ball 100 in 1996 against Srilanka,that knock would always remain as a fabulous achievement.It was just his 1st ever international innings & what a fantastic start it was at such a young age.!!!!

And it's ridiculously unfair by Pakistan that they get advantage in U-19 tournaments.Thats the reason behind pak's success in many of these tournaments as their players would be aged more than 20 but play U-19 cricket.But on an international basis it does not affect much as we can have a 16-year old playing with a 40-year old.But looking it the other way,Afridi is now the youngest cricketer to score century in odi,but actually that statement is not true.

The greatest cricketer of modern era, Sachin also started on 16 but it took him a while to deal in hundreds right? But a 16 year older playing his 2nd international match against the world champions , scoring a 100 off 37? That is so hard to believe! He should be 19 or 20!

I've several points to make...like the other user said, even my official age is 1 year less than what I am (reason why I'd have to wait for 1 more year to officially get 18). I don't exactly recall why was it done, but it was something that the principal of one of the most reputed schools of our city, found me too young or whatever, he said he'd take me one year later.

As of the player you pointed being 14, have my word, I was around 5 inches, or even more shorter than currently I am, when i was 14. Yes, 14 is too young.

But I think 16 is OK.

Agree with all the points except the last one, as we saw India vs Australia final in the previous edition of U19 WC...India also won another U19 Cup a few years ago.

Absolutely agree..... there is little doubt in my mind that Pakistanis are understating their age, especially in sports and more so in age-category competitions where it really amounts to cheating. In fact, the disease may be there even in some parts of northern Indian villages where registration of birth is not a standard practice at all.

Majaority of Pakistani cricketers begin their International career very early in age and also get spent far earlier than others. This can be very emphatically proved through stats.

May be possible. I'm least interested in Pakistan or Bangladesh.

You are bringing your own ruins here now Dinith. You definitely don't want a Pakistani or Bangladeshi backlash!

Regards.

It certainly looks a strong possibility after reading your assessment.

Your points great and i think you are right

Kids in Pakistan , Bangladesh and in parts of India don`t even go to school

I really donn`t expect them to have birth cetificates..its kinda unfortunate but gives them an advantage in under 19 WCs

I expect that to happen even more in Bangladesh

Well most parents give their kids a Higher official age so they can join school and eventually work earlier.Don't know if anyone makes their kids younger deliberately.

pakistanis don't go to school!!! don't you know that....they only attend the school of terrorism.

"PAKISTAN ACADEMY OF TERRORISM"

LOL

but if you are true than most of their senior players like misbah and ajmal who both are 35 must be 38 or 39 now...isn't it time to retire then.