Dr Paes was BCCI’s sports medicine head between 2008 and 2018 and also provided the Asian Cricket Council with medical advice
Ratnakar Shetty. Pic/Atul Kamble
Olympian Dr Vece Paes’s contribution to sport is not just restricted to hockey. BCCI’s veteran cricket administrator Prof Ratnakar Shetty explained that Dr Paes played a huge role in helping Indian cricket overcome its age-fudging quandary when he introduced the TW3 (Tanner Whitehouse 3) test and keenly took interest in educating cricketers about the same.
Dr Paes, 80, a member of the Indian hockey team that won the bronze medal at the 1972 Munich Olympics, passed away in Kolkata on Thursday. He was the father of Olympic bronze medal-winning tennis legend Leander Paes.
Streamlined age checks
“Dr Paes’s contribution to Indian cricket is huge. He streamlined the sport’s age verification programme and also set up a complete anti-doping system,” Prof Ratnakar Shetty, BCCI’s former Chief Administrative Officer, told mid-day on Thursday.
Dr Paes was BCCI’s sports medicine head between 2008 and 2018 and also provided the Asian Cricket Council with medical advice.
While highlighting the significance of Dr Paes’s initiative and work, Prof Shetty recalled: “Earlier we used to conduct bone tests for the U-16 and U-19 cricketers, but those tests used to be inconclusive. Then, Dr Paes introduced the TW3 test and we adopted that.
According to him, after the age of 16 years there is no use of bone tests because bones get completely fused. And that’s why he suggested the TW3 test around 2008-09 and we still use it to this day. It helped immensely in restricting age fudging. He implemented a proper system by designating hospitals with one representative from the BCCI. It resulted in no interference from the state associations. Additionally, every X-ray had a photo of that particular player and the player’s X-ray would then be digitally transferred to the designated doctor for verification, helping maintain anonymity. We had selected 10 doctors all over the country for this task.”
Dr Paes also made the anti-doping education programme compulsory for every state cricketer.
“He wrote the BCCI’s anti-doping code and made every state association adhere to it by having every single one of their cricketers attend the anti-doping education programme. His presence made a lot of difference. He was a great human being too.
‘Never complained ’
“Being an Olympian himself, he always tried to understand and help cricketers with their problems. He and Dr Abhijit Salvi would make all the arrangements for the dope tests at every centre during matches. They handled it very well without complaining about anything even once,” Prof Shetty signed off.
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