ICC adopts its own ‘anti-doping’ code

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The ICC has formed a committee to resolve the concerns of the Indian board regarding the controversial 'whereabouts' clause of the World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) code. More... ICC's anti-doping policy ICC forms committee to resolve doping row Cricinfo staff August 6, 2009 Anil Kumble is part of the panel formed by the ICC to address the Indian players' concerns The ICC has formed a committee to resolve the concerns of the Indian board regarding the controversial 'whereabouts' clause of the World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) code. The International Registered Testing Pool (IRTP) working group will be chaired by Tim Kerr, chairman of ICC Anti-Doping panel, and also includes ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat, BCCI secretary N Srinivasan, ICC principal advisor IS Bindra and former India captain Anil Kumble, who sits on WADA's Athlete Committee. Eleven Indian players are in the ICC's drug testing pool, and they have raised concerns about the clause, which requires them to inform the ICC at the beginning of every quarter (three-month period) of the year, a location and time that they will be available for an hour each day in that quarter for testing. The BCCI and the players were worried about security risks involved in providing whereabouts information in advance and have also said that the clause is a violation of privacy statutes. No dates have yet been set for a meeting of the IRTP panel, which was formed after the BCCI announced on Sunday that it would not require its players to file the 'whereabouts' information. WADA has been invited to send a representative to advice the panel. Lorgat reiterated that the ICC and the Indian board were keen to resolve the impasse at the earliest. "I am pleased we have constituted this group as I believe it will help to resolve the practical concerns of India players," Lorgat said. "All of us - the ICC and its members including India - are committed to a zero-tolerance approach in the area of anti-doping." The BCCI and the Indian board faced plenty of flak for their decision to not abide by the WADA code, including the country's sports minister. Cricketers from all other countries and India's top athletes have accepted the anti-doping regulations. One of the BCCI's suggestions for solving the problem was to introduce a new cricket-specific code, and asking the ICC to walk out of the WADA umbrella.

[Chandan]

Terrific arguments for and against BCCI's stand against WADA clause In cricinfo, Mukul Keshavan pens down a sensible piece supporting BCCI's stand against WADA's 'whereabouts' clause: Haunted by virtue: A drug-testing regime as invasive as WADA's needs to be vigorously debated, and thanks to the opposition from India's cricketers maybe it will now be

Mukul Kesavan August 10, 2009 The BCCI's quarrel with the World Anti Doping Agency sums up the way cricket has been disciplined by time. From timeless matches to the five-day Test, to the one-day international, to the compressed frenzy of the Twenty20 game, and now an anti-doping regime that makes cricketers account for their near future by the hour. WADA requires athletes and sportsmen to submit a schedule for three months that specifies an hour each day when they can be randomly tested for drugs. The Indian players have objected, arguing that they play cricket nine months of the year and don't want their leisure time to be invaded by WADA. The other objection that's been tabled is that Indian cricketers in general, and men like MS Dhoni and Sachin Tendulkar in particular, have security needs that could be infringed by rigid, shared schedules. WADA has made it clear that there will be no exceptions made for cricket. Every other cricket team, despite reservations, has signed up to the anti-doping regime, but the BCCI has asked the ICC to reject WADA's demands and create a drug-testing regime custom-made for cricket. Randhir Singh, secretary general of the Olympic Council of Asia, has made a statement saying that he thinks the BCCI should fall in line, and his reasons are unexceptionable: why should cricketers expect special treatment when hugely paid athletes in most other sports abide by the same rules? Similarly India's sports minister, MS Gill, has urged the BCCI not to hold out for special treatment. Gill and Singh and WADA have decent arguments to make, and what's more, some great names to back them up with. Tiger Woods is possibly the best-paid, most famous, sportsman in the world and he's strongly in favour of testing. "I think we should be proactive instead of reactive. I just think we should be ahead of it and keep our sport as pure as can be." Woods specifically said that he was happy to be tested anywhere, at any time, without notice. On the face of it, then, WADA's regime is a good thing and the BCCI and the Indian players are doing what they do best: being spoilt prima donnas, moaning and asking for special favours. But it isn't quite as simple as that. Cricket isn't the only sport that has resisted WADA's increasingly stringent testing regimes. In March this year, football's two most powerful bodies, UEFA and FIFA, rejected WADA's new code and asked the organisation to reconsider its rules given the special nature of team sport. Football's administrators argued that there was a basic difference between the individual athlete who trained privately, on his own, and footballers who trained collectively six days a week and were easy to locate. Like the BCCI, they asked for an exemption for players for the off-season "…in order to respect their private lives". Towards the end of April, WADA and FIFA were reported to have resolved their differences, with FIFA's president offering full compliance with WADA's regulations. FIFA's English affiliate couldn't have got the message because in early August the Guardian reported that the FA was successfully resisting WADA's plan to test its elite international players. UK Sport, acting on behalf of WADA, had settled for elite women players and junior players. FIFA's president, Sepp Blatter, was pressing for "high-risk categories", namely injured players, to be target-tested, not leading international players. This sounds remarkably as if FIFA and the English FA are asking for exemptions for their male internationals and offering their women, children and wounded as substitutes. And it isn't only football: the administrators of team sports like basketball, ice hockey and volleyball have all asked for clarifications. The BCCI is a soft target: a recent opinion piece on Cricinfo mocked as nonsensical the BCCI's invocation of the Indian constitution's guarantee of privacy. It's useful to note that the BBC news site reported earlier this year that "[…] sixty-five Belgian sportspeople have launched a legal challenge claiming that the intrusive nature of the WADA code breaks European Union privacy laws". If Yuvraj Singh's objections to the WADA code seem ludicrous because he's widely seen as one of a bunch of indulged Indian cricketers, we might attend to Rafael Nadal's objection to the new code, or that of Andy Murray, who said : "[…] these new rules are so draconian that it makes it almost impossible to live a normal life". According to the BBC, "[…] the British Athletics Commission (BAC) chief executive warned that the tougher regulations meant a number of British athletes would retire if they missed two tests rather than risk the possibility of a ban and the subsequent suspicion if they were absent on a third occasion". It's also important to understand that the sports administrators and players who object to the current testing regime aren't rejecting drug testing per se. In football 25,000 tests are carried out every year and 10 players, on an average, test positive annually. Blatter is asking for modifications to the new code that came into effect from the beginning of 2009. The problem is that the code was agreed in 2007 at a conference FIFA attended, which puts FIFA in roughly the same position as the BCCI: they're trying to renege on a code that they signed up for without reading the fine print. Cricket does drug testing too. Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug, nandrolone, and were suspended from cricket by the Pakistan Cricket Board. The problem is that the drug testing is done by national boards that are vulnerable to pressure. The treatment of Akhtar and Asif is a case in point: the first tribunal's suspension was set aside by a second tribunal, and the pair got away without serving a suspension. WADA was deeply unhappy and took its objection to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland with, interestingly, the blessing of the ICC, which said it wanted cricket cleansed of drug-taking, but the action came to nothing because the court declared that it didn't have jurisdiction over the PCB. But WADA was vindicated by the fact that the PCB's leniency encouraged Asif to err again: he tested positive in 2008 and is currently serving a year's ban. Abhinav Bindra, India's only Olympic gold medalist, said in an interview last week that WADA's regime was easy to follow. He had declared himself available at home between seven and eight every morning because he was generally at home during then and, he added disarmingly, it was the time of day when it was easy produce a urine sample. When there was a change in his daily schedule, he logged in to the WADA site and entered the details of the change and specified an hour when he'd be available. I'm not sure Bindra's testimony will change many minds in the Indian cricket team. This is partly because the rhythms of his stock-still sport have about as much to do with a cricketer's routines as a tree's habits have to do with a cheetah's daily round. Also, someone like Virender Sehwag or Ishant Sharma probably thinks of Bindra as a bespectacled nerd who likes fiddling with computers and tinkering with schedules. It's wrong to generalise, but I think the reason Indian players are holding out when every other cricket-playing country has fallen in line has nothing to do with being perverse or arrogant: they're genuinely appalled by the thought that they have to schedule their lives three months in advance. Indians don't do schedules well: they don't plan their holidays a year in advance, they don't write their appointments down in a diary, they don't think it's wrong to default on a deadline, and if the art of the last minute was an Olympic sport you'd only see Indians on the medals podium. Mithali Raj, the Indian batswoman (I'd say "batsperson" if it didn't suggest an ungendered vampire) had the most succinct take on this Indian view of the world. "During competitions, you are in one place and know your itinerary. When you are at home, you don't know about the next three hours, forget about three months… We plan things spontaneously, be it a movie or a dinner." So while I'm convinced that cricket needs drug testing (specially in the IPL epoch, when the monetary pressure on cricketers to recover from injury is enormous), it isn't clear to me that WADA's new Big Brother regime is the only way to go. It's certainly wholly contrary to the Indian instinct to extemporise leisure. But this is bigger than the Indian players, the BCCI or the ICC or cricket. A code that makes your professional livelihood contingent on ambush testing the year round, seriously threatens a player's privacy. The rationale for a player making himself available every day at a particular time is that there are sophisticated drugs that don't show up after a day. WADA can't give the athlete even a day's notice for fear that he might time his intake so that the drug's effects wear off before the appointed hour. But what if someone invents a performance-enhancing drug that vanishes from scientific view in, say, 12 hours? A player could avoid detection by taking it 12 hours before the snoops are due. Going by the logic of WADA's testing regimen, players will then be required to set aside testing slots at eight-hourly intervals to forestall cheating. That way lies madness: a sporting life organised around and haunted by inquisitorial ghosts. The sporting world may well come to the conclusion that this imposition is worthwhile if it delivers credible, drug-free competition, but a code as invasive as this one needs to be publicly and vigorously debated. To those who ask with elaborate irony, how it comes to pass that only India's cricketers have made a stand, the short answer is that they have because they can. The BCCI's enormous financial clout, the fact that cricket has nearly nothing to do with international sporting bodies like the IOC (and can't therefore be stampeded into acquiescence by the threat of being banned from the Olympics) gives them the leeway, the breathing space, to argue this case. Instead of sneering at Tendulkar and Co we ought to thank them for initiating this conversation. Mukul Kesavan is a novelist, essayist and historian based in New Delhi

whereas in Guardian, Dilip Premchandran does the usual Indian cricketers and BCCI bashing, though some of his points are good but the undertone of the article is bad: Indian cricket not playing a straight bat with Wada: What makes the 11 dissenting cricketers believe they should be exempt from an anti-doping regulation to which 20,000 athletes have signed?

You are an Indian cricketer, so revered/reviled by the public that you can't step out without the sunglasses and wigs that wouldn't have been out of place on a TV show about Scousers in the 1980s. The season is over and, with just a fortnight to go before the interminable cycle of gym, practice and commercial shoots starts up again, you decide to take your family and disappear into the wilds of the Masai Mara or Iceland. You have a good time on holiday, putting away your favourite food and the odd beverage, those little luxuries that modern sport tends to deny its practitioners. Then, in the middle of the night, around the time cricket tragics back home wake up to tune into the play from New Zealand, there's a knock on the door. It's an inspection team from the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada). Bleary-eyed with sleep, you have to step into another room, drop your pyjamas and pee into a bottle, in full view of some stranger that you've never seen before. This, in a nutshell, is the Doomsday scenario that has India's cricketers refusing to accept Wada's controversial "whereabouts" clause. According to the rules to which all major sporting bodies are supposed to be a signatory, players must advise the organisation of their whereabouts for an hour every day over the forthcoming three months. Not really a problem during cricket season, with itineraries planned months or even years in advance, but a nightmare if embarking on an impromptu holiday. But is it really? Saina Nehwal, India's brightest badminton prospect in years, told a TV channel recently that Wada had only ever tested her at practice, that they had never once arrived at her home for a sample. Surely, she said, even the cricketers practised during the off-season? Abhinav Bindra, who won gold in shooting at the Beijing Olympics, also had no issues. He would be home every morning between 7am and 8am, he said, and if there were a change of plan, he could always go on to the Wada website and inform them. As Sharda Ugra, India's most respected sportswriter, said in India Today: "More than 20,000 athletes have moaned and grumbled and complained but have all signed up to this rule. So what exactly makes the 11 dissenting Indian cricketers [the nine men and two women part of the testing pool] exempt is hard to see." The roots of the problem are quickly spotted. There are few softer targets in the sporting world than the Indian cricket board. In recent times, it's been easy to observe an anti-India feeling that's remarkably similar to the Anyone But United syndrome that is such an integral part of English football. But while it is United's on-field success and global following that are resented, disenchantment with Indian cricket has very little to do with what happens on the field, and everything to do with the board's bully-boy tactics off it. The Wada issue is a classic example. When India's own anti-doping agency sent out a circular asking all sporting bodies to fall in line, the BCCI didn't even bother to reply. Naturally, its silence was taken as consent. The feeling throughout the present impasse has been that not one board official has even bothered to check out the Wada statutes or its website. The players' stand is merely an extension of the fact that they have the board's support. There are so many misconceptions that it's hard to find a starting point. The primary issue was one of security. After what happened in Lahore in March, and previous terrorist threats to the likes of Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni, the players are petrified that revealing their future whereabouts to Wada will compromise their safety. Fair enough, you'd think, except for the fact that Wada's online process is as secure as most banking transactions. You, I or AN Ordinary won't be able to gatecrash Yuvraj Singh's next party. The Indian cricketers are not against testing per se, but against the "invasion of privacy" during off-season. Sadly, they have no choice but to deal with it. If any sport is to clean up its drugs act and stop itself becoming a joke like baseball or cycling, then out-of-competition testing cannot be optional. And it is not as though cricket has been sea-green incorruptible either. Both Mohammad Asif and Shoaib Akhtar tested positive before the Champions Trophy in 2006. With the schedules being as nonsensical as they are – India's players go straight from a series against South Africa into the IPL and then barely have time to pack their bags for the World Twenty20 in the Caribbean next April-May – the temptation to use substances that can keep creaking bodies going will only increase exponentially. What then is the solution? On Cricinfo, Mukul Kesavan wrote: "It's wrong to generalise but I think the reason Indian players are holding out when every other cricket-playing country has fallen in line has nothing to do with being perverse or arrogant: they're genuinely appalled by the thought that they have to schedule their lives three months in advance. Indians don't do schedules well: they don't plan their holidays a year in advance, they don't write their appointments down in a diary, they don't think it's wrong to default on a deadline, and if the art of the last minute was an Olympic sport you'd only see Indians on the medals podium." He has a point but I certainly can't agree with those who say India's players aren't tech-savvy enough to log in to the Wada page and let the organisation know of a change in itinerary. If you're au fait enough with the web to send each other R-rated messages on social-networking sites then you can certainly fill in a form too. Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams and many others have complained bitterly about the rules but unless we want every single sporting record to be devalued by the cheats, there really is no way out. Kesavan concludes his piece with another nugget about the BCCI stand. "To those who ask with elaborate irony, how it comes to pass that only India's cricketers have made a stand, the short answer is that they have because they can," he writes. "The BCCI's enormous financial clout, the fact that cricket has nearly nothing to do with international sporting bodies such as the IOC (and can't therefore be stampeded into acquiescence by the threat of being banned from the Olympics) gives them the leeway, the breathing space, to argue this case. Instead of sneering at Tendulkar and co, we ought to thank them for initiating this conversation." I'd prefer it if someone well-versed in the subject sat down with the board and players and explained away their imaginary fears. Like homespun techniques against the short ball, there are few things more dangerous than a little learning.

Since I support Indian cricketers' and BCCI's stand, obviously I could find many loopholes in DP's article. But you can find few loop holes in Keshavan's article too. Don't forget to read the comment sections, especially in Guardian. It really was very informative for me.

[DomainK]

What makes the 11 dissenting cricketers believe they should be exempt from an anti-doping regulation to which 20,000 athletes have signed?

I am afraid that's not very good argument. So many have already accepted does not mean that everyone is comfortable with the invasion of privacy.

[braguvaran]

Or maybe comes another question!! Are indian playas doing this so that they can remove WADA from cricket and then they will be free to take dope and then play? Are some of them dope addicts??

[Desi Cartman]

Or maybe comes another question!! Are indian playas doing this so that they can remove WADA from cricket and then they will be free to take dope and then play? Are some of them dope addicts??

you mean a drug cheat like Warne ? :hmmm:

[Sachinism]

Many others have raised this issue. And anyway they don't believe they should be exempt from an anti-doping regulation, they want some compromise because of some extremely valid reasons

[braguvaran]

Wasnt it a case were in if the playas are not happy with a clause or anything the ICC shd protest against that rather than the BCCI doin it? In this case as a member nation the BCCI are only allowed to show its concern to ICC rather than saying we will not accept this in any case!!! Clearly the ICC is bending head over heels to the bullying of BCCI

[Desi Cartman]

Wasnt it a case were in if the playas are not happy with a clause or anything the ICC shd protest against that rather than the BCCI doin it? In this case as a member nation the BCCI are only allowed to show its concern to ICC rather than saying we will not accept this in any case!!! Clearly the ICC is bending head over heels to the bullying of BCCI

and whats your problem with that ? Do you think even if a board has a valid argument then it should just agree because ICC said so ? ICC hasnt asked any team not to tour Zimbabwe but how many teams play zimbabwe these days ?

[braguvaran]

and whats your problem with that ? Do you think even if a board has a valid argument then it should just agree because ICC said so ? ICC hasnt asked any team not to tour Zimbabwe but how many teams play zimbabwe these days ?

Of course yes !!!! What made you think the otherwise... Thats the way the system of sporting bodies have been working for centuries..... And dont mix politics here please!!!

[Chandan]

Can you all read the articles first, before commenting?

[DomainK]

Can you all read the articles first' date=' before commenting?[/quote'] Sorry, when I opened the thread for the first time, the text in the quotes was not showing.

[Chandan]

Sorry' date=' when I opened the thread for the first time, the text in the quotes was not showing.[/quote'] Come on Domaink! You can click on the links provided, can't you? Please click on the links so that you can read the comment section of the Guardian article!

[Desi Cartman]

Of course yes !!!! What made you think the otherwise... Thats the way the system of sporting bodies have been working for centuries..... And dont mix politics here please!!!

How about not mixing personal life with professional life :hmmm:

[jf1gp_1]

Few things to consider, drug tests have to be random you cant just expect wada to send a schedule to every player that this is the day when we will show up and we will test you. I also dont buy i dont know what my schedule will be 3 months from now argument. All cricketers have people taking care of their schedule, based on what i have read it shouldn’t be hard to update the schedule. Having said that you just cannot deny the fact that security concerns raised by our players are genuine but i am sure wada would have put in place all security measures to ensure noone but authorized people have access to individuals where about As always i doubt the picture pained by our media that BCCI is on a war path is accurate, yes BCCI has suggested alternate options but its just a debate. BCCI has to put its players wishes first. On a whole i feel our players have raised concerns, its not just BCCI but ICCs duty to comeup with solutions. Unlike pak t20 captain our team is made up of intelligent and mature individuals who would be willing to do their part to make this work.

[Lord]

Or maybe comes another question!! Are indian playas doing this so that they can remove WADA from cricket and then they will be free to take dope and then play? Are some of them dope addicts??

n u call urself an indian?

[cricketrulez]

n u call urself an indian?

I think he is actually gaurav_indian

[Guest gaurav_indian]

I think he is actually gaurav_indian

You come out of your hole just to take cheap shots at me? Mods should check your IP address. Almost 80% of your posts are directed at me even though you just joined this forum few days ago. I know who you are mr cricketrulez.

[cricketrulez]

You come out of your hole just to take cheap shots at me? Mods should check your IP address. Almost 80% of your posts are directed at me even though you just joined this forum few days ago. I know who you are mr cricketrulez.

Here are my issues against you Can't give very good reason as to why cricketers should agree to a clause which makes more sense to athletics. Can't explain why WADA gave special treatment to FIFA Insist that india should play pakisan even though part of the money pak makes will be used to send murderers to india. Also you make stupid dumb brainless arguments equating mumbai massacre to random violent crimes in Aus. these are the same arguments made by pakis in the paki boards. so excuse me if I don't think you are Indian or disgusted by indians like you

[Guest gaurav_indian]

Here are my issues against you Can't give very good reason as to why cricketers should agree to a clause which makes more sense to athletics. Can't explain why WADA gave special treatment to FIFA Insist that india should play pakisan even though part of the money pak makes will be used to send murderers to india. Also you make stupid dumb brainless arguments equating mumbai massacre to random violent crimes in Aus. these are the same arguments made by pakis in the paki boards. so excuse me if I don't think you are Indian or disgusted by indians like you

As far as issues related to WADA many people share my views in india. Go and ask all these questions to them also. There are two sides of a coin. If you dont like people having different opinions then plz leave this internet world. Its not for you. Becoz for people like you having different opinions makes them less indian or traitor. Yeah india should play pakistan thats the only way to show your rivalry. Becoz politically india wont do anything. So why not settle it on the field? And how does that make anyone non indian? When one wants to see his country win against rival country in a cricket match. Or am i explaining this to a 3 year old kid? First of all you spend your time on pakistani boards and read their threads and views. Then you come here and call me a pakistani. What a loser. You spent half of your time there and for what? If you dont like them then why do you go there? Yeah i go to mods becoz its a forum you idiot there are some rules which you need to follow. You wont like it if i start calling you names or call your family traitor here. Mods told me to report before replying to silly and inflammatory posts. If you have any problem with me or my posts go and click that ignore user button its very simple. Noone is forcing you to read my posts. And if you want to quote and reply then do so without calling me paki/non indian/traitor. You are nobody to call me a traitor/pak/non indian. You are just one of those losers who dont have anything to do in their lives, they just sit on their a**** and mess with people online. And yeah you write like texdes1. When one(cricketrulez) goes other one(texdes1) comes and vice versa. You have some serious problems dude. Your IP's should be checked.

[cricketrulez]

"As far as issues related to WADA many people share my views in india. Go and ask all these questions to them also." FTR, I have written to every author who wrote the articles expressing the same dumb, idiotic lines with no research what so ever in this WADA affair. I call spade a spade. Most of the ones who bash BCCI and Indian cricketers are either a) uninformed, b) have an axe to grind against BCCI or c) Use BCCI as a soft target to claim their 15 minutes of fame. I have defended BCCI/ Indian cricketers vociferously in this matter (see the links) and will continue to do so. http://www.slcricket.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=ilfsnrd8im4kk0n2994o1fo1q2&topic=24094.0 http://groups.google.com/group/rec.sport.cricket/browse_thread/thread/c02df0d2b3c8a0ac/2ff1a6cc58606a17?lnk=gst&q=cricketrulez#2ff1a6cc58606a17 Yeah india should play pakistan thats the only way to show your rivalry. Becoz politically india wont do anything. So why not settle it on the field? And how does that make anyone non indian? When one wants to see his country win against rival country in a cricket match. Or am i explaining this to a 3 year old kid? Sure, lets play pakistan, where they don't care about loosing, but for usre part of that money will promote more violence against india! You think this is good way to get revenge? And on top of this you are insinuating I'm a 3 year old? Sheesh! I guess you enjoy the violence pakistan unleashes on india using India's money. First of all you spend your time on pakistani boards and read their threads and views. Then you come here and call me a pakistani. What a loser. You spent half of your time there and for what? If you dont like them then why do you go there? It helps to know how your adversary thinks and acts and voila what do you know, their arguments are identical to yours. I'll let you decide if that is good thing or bad thing. Yeah i go to mods becoz its a forum you idiot there are some rules which you need to follow. You wont like it if i start calling you names or call your family traitor here. Mods told me to report before replying to silly and inflammatory posts. If you have any problem with me or my posts go and click that ignore user button its very simple. Noone is forcing you to read my posts. And if you want to quote and reply then do so without calling me paki/non indian/traitor. You are nobody to call me a traitor/pak/non indian. You are just one of those losers who dont have anything to do in their lives, they just sit on their a**** and mess with people online. You expressed your opinion and I expressed my thoughts on your post, don't like it, tough ****. All you have to shut me up is counter my points instead of dong the "Gish Gallop". If you can't do that, suck it up. And yeah you write like texdes1. When one(cricketrulez) goes other one(texdes1) comes and vice versa. You have some serious problems dude. Your IP's should be checked. I think I have given adequate proof that I'm not texdes1. If you still think I'm, then you are not very bright. I gotta get to know this tex guy, based on you description, he and I might get along very well.