Hyderabad: The problem of overaged players reared its ugly head again. The coaches of Malaysia and Singapore alleged on Tuesday that India and Pakistan have fielded overaged players in the ongoing 6th Men’s Asia Cup Junior hockey championship here.

Both India and Pakistan have made it to the semifinals while Singapore and Malaysia failed to reach the last four. Malaysian coach Muralidharan went to the extent of blaming the Indian team for fielding a 25 year-old player in the team.

‘‘I know one of their forward played in the Azlan Shah Hock ey tournament registering himself as a 25-year-old. I was shocked to find he is playing in an under-21 tournament here. What can we do. I don’t have proof to prove all these. We hear that around six players in the Indian team and a few in the Pakistan are overaged. But we don’t have proof and so we can’t complain,’’ Muralidharan said and added that his team does not have any overaged player. ‘‘I can assure you that no player in my team is overaged. We don’t resort to such practices,” he added.

Singapore coach Chiow Chuan Lim said the international federation should check this problem. ‘‘The problem of overaged players is everywhere in the world. The FIH should adopt scientific practices to contain this problem. I am very upset that big teams are fielding overaged players,’’ Lim said.

Asked to comment on matchfixing allegations against the senior Malaysian team at the Azlan Shah hockey tournament, Muralidharan said: ‘‘I don’t believe in such allegations. I think my senior team has been cleared in this issue. Moreover, they don’t have to fix the match and according to me fixing is not possible in such a close game,’’ he said.

Meanwhile, the absence of V Raghunath, who featured in the list of probables, from the team has in fact given more credence to the allegations against the Indian team.

A tournament official told ToI on condition of anonymity that Raghunath was dropped at the last minute on the advice of his employer Air India. ‘‘Air India officials were against the idea of fielding Raghunath in the team as his age is well beyond 21 according to the Air India records. I heard that even the player was reluctant to play the tournament,’’ the official said.