JOIN USRahul, Jadeja, Pujara served NADA notice
Five Indian international cricketers, three men and two women, were issued notices by the National Anti Doping Agency (NADA) for failing to disclose their whereabouts but the serious lapse by the BCCI is unlikely cause any harm for the players concerned.
Cheteshwar Pujara, Ravindra Jadeja, KL Rahul and women players Smriti Mandhana and Deepti Sharma — all centrally contracted by the Board — are the five cricketers in the 110-member National Registered Testing Pool (NRTP).
Those athletes in the NRTP are expected to send their whereabouts every three months in advance and failure to do attracts a notice. Three such notices (which is considered an equivalent to a dope violation) and the failure to offer a suitable explanation could see the athlete suspended for up to four years.
Athletes, and in some cases their respective federations, upload their whereabouts form to ADAMS (Anti Doping Administration & Management System). In case of cricket, the BCCI submits the whereabouts of the players but the national body, owing to the lockdown, didn’t upload the details of the five players, which forced NADA to issue a notice.
NADA has issued notices to 40 athletes from various disciplines for failing to submit their whereabouts.
“Things have been difficult during the lockdown and we understand the concerns faced by the athletes and in some cases the federation,” Navin Agarwal, NADA’s Director General, told DH. “The BCCI has said they were unable to access ADAMS due to some password issues. We found their explanation for the miss reasonable. They also mentioned that the issue has been sorted now so we are confident they’ll act on it immediately.”
When asked why the BCCI didn’t intimate NADA about the failure to access ADAMS, Agarwal said the question is better posed to the cricket board. “Firstly, we don’t operate ADAMS. It’s managed by WADA and we simply take information from there. We are the national watchdogs. So if someone has trouble accessing it then they have to get it sorted by WADA, but yes they can keep us in the loop. That way we will also know what’s happening.”
Several calls to Dr Abhijit Salvi, the BCCI’s anti-doping manager, on what hurdles the Board faced in accessing ADAMS went unanswered. An office-bearer too refused to comment on the issue.
Meanwhile, Agarwal said the miss on the part of BCCI may be handled in a lenient way. “A notice is actually quite strong because three such notices means it could lead to a ban. As I said, we are quite happy with BCCI’s explanation. We will be having a meeting next week and we could let them off.”