75% untested

No drugs tests for 75 per cent of County cricketers.

Elizabeth Ammon.

The Times.

Thursday, 13 April 2017.

PTG 2104-10668.

Three quarters of professional cricketers in England and Wales were not tested for drugs in the past year.  Only 130 tests were carried out on male cricketers in the 12 months to March this year, while no tests were carried out on female cricketers in that period. Of these 130, only 28 took place outside of the cricket season.

It has been learnt that the reason for the lack of tests is because UK Anti-Doping (Ukad) does not deem cricket to be of sufficiently high risk to demand them to use their public funding, as they do for sports such as rugby union and football.

The rise in prominence of Twenty20 cricket means cricketers need to be stronger and this means the risk of doping has naturally increased (PTG 1740-8656, 17 January 2016).  One anti-doping expert said that Ukad’s stance is “a complete nonsense” as players could clearly benefit from substances that enhance their strength, stamina or recovery from injury.

At present the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) pays Ukad to carry out 150 urine tests a year in domestic cricket (PTG 1068-5195, 28 February 2013). While the figure amounts to about a third of the registered professional men and women, some are tested more than once, meaning it can lead to as few as 80 players being tested.  Two county cricketers, who did not wish to be named, say they have not been tested for two years.

In comparison, two thirds of Premier League footballers were tested during the 2015-16 season. In rugby union only a third of top-flight players were tested, with a more of a focus on the amateur and semi-professional game. No testing is conducted in amateur or semi-professional cricket. A source close to Ukad said that because of the way that Ukad decides who and how to test based on their assessment of risk there would be very few, if any, anti-doping tests carried out in cricket unless paid for by the governing body or triggered by a specific piece of intelligence that they had received. 

“It’s a complete nonsense that Ukad don’t deem cricket to be high risk”, one anti-doping expert said. “Especially for bowlers, where certain banned substances could help their stamina and strength and help them recover from injury more quickly.  The rise in prominence of T20 cricket. which has given rise to far more lucrative contracts in cricket than ever before, means cricketers need to be stronger than ever and this means the risk of doping has naturally increased”.

Dr Paul Dimeo, a leading academic in the field of doping in sport at the University of Stirling said: “If Ukad are motivated by health and fair play, you would think their resources should be allocated consistently across sports, which they don’t seem to be.  Risk becomes higher when athletes see drugs as useful for their ambitions”.

Few cricketers have failed drugs tests. Former Australian spinner Shane Warne was banned for taking a diuretic after a shoulder injury in 2003 while Pakistan fast bowlers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif tested positive for nandrolone, a steroid, in 2006 and were banned (PTG 1724-8561, 30 December 2015), but that was subsequently overturned; while leg-spinner Yasir Shah was banned for three months after testing positive for chlorthalidone (PTG 1756-8759, 8 February 2016).  More recently a country player in New Zealand was banned for a year for using nandrolone (PTG 2096-10612, 5 April 2017).

Testing is conducted via urine samples at present, though this does not show up use of human growth hormone or peptides, a banned chemical. They are detected using blood sampling, which will be used in the Champions Trophy, which takes place in the UK in June. The International Cricket Council is introducing blood passports later this year (PTG 2040-10332, 6 February 2017).

Cricketers under the ECB’s jurisdiction are subject to mandatory annual hair testing for recreational drugs. The scheme has been in place for three years and was introduced after the death of Tom Maynard, the Surrey cricketer, who was found to be under the influence of alcohol and cocaine (PTG 1077-5241, 18 March 2013).  The ECB has set aside additional funding for anti-doping education and testing for the coming year, including extending its contract with Ukad to cover the women’s T20 Super League.

We’ve seen the impact that doping scandals have had on the reputation of other sports and the ECB has made the integrity of its new T20 league a keysobjective. The huge amounts of money being ploughed into this competition, one that it wants to make the best versus the best, means that people will expect it to be clean.  Cricket has not been tarnished by doping scandals, but the sport is changing and efforts to keep it clean have to be ramped up.

08/03/17
Jamaica look to extend Dre ban

West Indies all-rounder Andre Russell is facing the prospect of an extension to his one-year ban for a doping whereabouts rule violation.

Jamaica's anti-doping commission (JADCO) is pushing for the maximum two-year suspension to be imposed on the 28-year-old Russell, who was banned in January for one year.

JADCO chief executive Carey Brown told Reuters on Wednesday that his organisation had filed an appeal with Jamaica's five-member anti-doping Appeals Tribunal.

31/01/17

Last season's guest Outlaw has been banged to rights!

Andre Russell, Worldwide T20 globe-trotter has been banned from playing for a year.

A three-member tribunal comprising Hugh Faulkner, Dr Marjorie Vassell and Dixeth Palmer, a former Jamaica cricketer, found Russell guilty of being negligent in filing his whereabouts on three separate occasions within a 12-month period in 2015. That - under the World Anti-Doping Agency rules - amounted to a failed dope test.

Patrick Foster, Russell's lawyer, confirmed the verdict and said he would discuss all options with his client including appealing the ban.

In March 2016, the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission pressed charges of negligence against Russell for not filing his whereabouts on January 1, July 1 and July 25 in 2015 despite several reminders through calls, e-mails and written letters.

In his defense, Russell had told the tribunal that he had not been negligent. Considering his cricketing commitments around the world, and his own lack of training in filing the required paperwork

Russell, through his counsel, look set to appeal the ban.