BCCI vs World Anti-Doping Agency: Crux of the standoff

With the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) having little other choice than complying with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) norms, there is every possibility that members of the Board may demand a general body meeting soon to discuss the situation.

This has been necessitated after acting secretary Amitabh Choudhary warned the Board members that India might stand the risk of isolating itself from the global sports fraternity if it does not pay heed to the WADA demands.

As Choudhary returns from Singapore after attending International Cricket Council (ICC) chief executives' meeting, it is clear that the onus is now on the BCCI to take a stand, because WADA has given the ICC enough time to convince member countries to comply with its norms.

As the situation stands, only the world's richest cricket board, BCCI, is seen as non-complaint to the WADA norms. Though the Afghanistan board is also yet to sign on dotted lines, their consent is hardly a concern considering their say in the ICC.

Players' apprehensions

The issue, in a nutshell, is that the BCCI has been pressurised by Indian cricketers over the years to not accept WADA's controversial "whereabouts" clause.

As per the clause, players must disclose to their respective federations their whereabouts for an hour every day over the forthcoming three months.

While the Indian cricketers have no problem with this rule when the cricket season is on, their objections relate to the time when they are off the field and away from cricket on holidays.

However, the clause stands even for the likes of Serena Williams, PV Sindhu or thousands of athletes around the world who have signed up for this rule despite the apprehensions and complaints, if any.

WADA's stand is clear: Every athlete, including cricketers, practices during the off-season and the whereabouts issue cannot be a thorn only for the dissenting Indian cricket players.

To the ICC's credit, it has also worked out a set of rules by which cricketers were to be tested only at training fields, match venues or the hotels, except for those previously caught for doping offences.

In any case, WADA does not have specific whereabouts rules binding on all member bodies.

All federations around the world are authorised to frame their own whereabouts rules. The whereabouts information could either be filed to WADA or the national anti-doping agencies, which is the National Anti-Doping Agency in India's case.

Skill, not doping

Many of top Indian cricketers have argued over the years that unlike many other sports, skills of a cricket player can't be enhanced by using any kind of performance-enhancing drugs.

WADA's own statistics till now show that cricket had just 0.2 per cent of positive cases till 2015 (2 out of 995 samples tested) as compared to football with 0.5 per cent (160 out of 32,362 samples) or hockey 0.4 per cent (6 out of 1,432 samples) for the same time period among the team games.

Weightlifting 2.7 per cent (272 from 10,262), athletics 0.9 per cent (265 from 30,308) and cycling 0.9 per cent (244 from 22,652) topped the charts during this duration.

With cricket now being played throughout the year, thanks to the invention of Indian Premier League a decade ago, the Indian players can hardly talk about the privacy factor during the off season.

And, contrary to the objections by a few famous cricketers, the inclusion of cricket in the Olympics would mean a lot for the lesser-ranked nations and lesser-known players who could gain significantly from this one step.

Thus, the Board would do well to understand the need of the hour and bring in a consensus amongst all the players to come on equal terms with all their other contemporaries.