Top Indian cricketers including Cheteshwar Pujara, Ravindra Jadeja and KL Rahul find themselves in National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) dock for failing to disclose their ‘whereabouts’. The process is mandatory for 110 Indian cricketers who are part of the Registered Testing Pool (RTP) of NADA after the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) agreed to come under the ambit of NADA in August 2019.
The other top players to have received the notice include women’s team stars Smriti Mandhana and Deepti Sharma.
“Yes, we have sent notices to 41 cricketers who had failed to fill whereabouts form asking explanation for their failure to do so. There are two ways to fill up the whereabouts form in the ADAMS (Anti-Doping Administration & Management Systems) software. Either cricketer does it himself or association (in this case BCCI) fills it up on his or her behalf,” NADA director general Navin Agarwal told indiansportsnews.com on Saturday (June 13).
“Not all athletes or sportspersons are educated or technically equipped enough to fill this form online. These sportspersons can seek the help of their respective federations to fill the form but there can be no excuse for failing to upload the whereabouts details on ADAMS,” Agarwal added.
Cheteshwar Pujara, Ravindra Jadeja and KL Rahul failed to fill the whereabouts for the period of March to June 2020.
“We have recently received a reply from the BCCI on behalf of these cricketers. The cricket board explained to us that there was a glitch in regards to the password to access the ADAMS website. Now that the issue has been resolved, we don’t expect any such indiscretions in the future,” Agarwal said.
“We will discuss whether this failure counts as one of three failures that every sportspersons is allowed or we should accept the explanation offered by the BCCI,” the NADA director general said.
India has been under lockdown from March 23 due to the Coronavirus pandemic and NADA is taking serious note of such issues.
“We will definitely consider the matter of lockdown and other extraordinary situations that the country is going through at the moment. But that will have to be determined by a NADA panel,” Agarwal explained.
West Indies and Kolkata Knight Riders all-rounder Andre Russell had been banned from cricket for a period of one year for failing to disclose his whereabouts in Jamaica back in 2017. Russell failed to file his whereabouts on three occasions in 2015 and was barred from playing both international and domestic cricket until 31 January next year.
Back in 2009, then BCCI president Shashank Manohar had met then Indian captain MS Dhoni, Harbhajan Singh and Yuvraj Singh to discuss the ‘Whereabouts’ clause and all the players had expressed their reservations against it.
