Panaji: The Goa Cricket Association (GCA) has tightened rules for outstation players to feature in domestic competitions, and even represent the state team, to ensure that Goans don’t get elbowed out.Several outstation cricketers have turned themselves locals and represented teams in domestic competitions, simply by ‘proving’ that they are students here. According to sources, outstation cricketers enrol themselves at friendly schools to take part in age-group competitions, while others obtain an employment letter from club officials who run establishments of their own.Now, GCA has amended the eligibility rules.According to the new rules, “to be considered for selection in any age category as a local player, a cricketer not born in Goa should be studying/working or residing in the State of Goa for a minimum period of five years prior to the date on which he can be considered for selection.”The restrictions, however, do not apply to any individual who is born to a person of Goan origin (at least one parent must be of Goan origin) or is the child of a central govt employee or member of the armed forces posted within Goa.The GCA managing committee approved the rule change at its last meeting and will implement it from this season itself.“We had to amend the rules because Goan players were being left out by outstation cricketers, helped by officials from the state to obtain necessary documents,” a senior official told TOI on Tuesday. “Our duty is to protect the interest of Goan cricketers. We must ensure that their progress is not hindered.”In the Ranji Trophy, states are allowed to register three professional players or those from areas outside their jurisdiction.In the past, Goa has had several high-profile players which includes the likes of VB Chandrashekhar, Roger Binny, Pravin Amre, Ajay Ratra, S Sriram, Ruturaj Singh and U-19 World Cupper Smit Patel. When it was not possible to rope in international players, GCA managed to have players of decent repute like Senthil Nathan, Vivek Jaisimha, Mandar Phadke, N Gautham, Tanveer Jabbar, Manoj Joglekar and J Arun Kumar.For this season, Goa will continue with the trio of Lalit Yadav, Vasuki Koushik and Arjun Tendulkar, now into his fifth season representing the state.
