BCCI chief medical officer resignation puts a cloud over age-verification for Vijay Merchant Trophy

Dr. Abhijit Salvi, BCCI chief medical officer, has resigned just before the Vijay Merchant Trophy starting from January 9. Salvi moved out after the New Zealand Test series which finished on December 7 in Mumbai. He is believed to have stepped down for personal reasons. The BCCI's medical expert, who verifies players' age eligibility has stepped down nearly about a month before the tournament. The BCCI is yet to make Salvi's exit public. The board has also not given any indication if it intends to advertise for his replacement.

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The timing of BCCI chief medical officer, Salvi's departure is significant, considering the BCCI is scheduled to conduct the Under-16 national championships. However, the Vijay Merchant Trophy is starting from January 9, 2022. There are 36 teams with matches across the country. What has this got to do with Salvi? He was in charge of the age verification process. Meanwhile, former Indian captain and current men's head coach Rahul Dravid said was "toxic" and equivalent to "fixing".

Normally, Salvi would have been busy now conducting the bone density test, otherwise known as the Tanner Whitehouse 3 method. The TW3 method is used to determine the age of the player based on the growth of the bones in the wrist. However, the TW3 method is only for the Under-16 level by BCCI. The board's age-verification team's main responsibility is totally the TW3 rating along with the date of birth proof documents before submitting the final eligibility report for each player. As CMO, Salvi was the authorizing head for the eligibility report.

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One key potential danger of there being no medical expert interpreting and validating the eligibility process is genuine players could get disqualified for the Under-16 tournament, which could further endanger their participation in BCCI's Under-19 tournaments in the future.

Salvi joined the BCCI in 2012, was the one-person medical arm of the board. Meanwhile, he was leading the medical and anti-doping wings. Recently, Salvi was also the CMO at the men's T20 World Cup in the UAE and Oman.

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During the pandemic, Salvi's responsibilities stacked up massively as he had to prepare the biosafety norms for all cricket played in India, including the last two editions of the IPL. His biggest challenge came during the first half of IPL 2021, which had to be halted at the halfway stage after Covid-19 cases in the tournament bubble grew quickly.