What's all the fuss about ?

The World Anti Doping Agency ,WADA is the international independent organization created in 1999 to promote, coordinate, and monitor the fight against doping in sport in all its forms. It remains the only credible, independent and official anti-doping watchdog and consists of representatives from the Olympic movement and public authorities. Compliance with WADA norms will enhance cricket's credibility as a world team sport and is a mandatory requirement for participating in global multi-sport competitions like the Asian Games and Olympics. The updated WADA code was unanimously approved last year by the ICC board.

The players are not against the anti-doping rule but the clause that are against is that the players from the testing pool have 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. If a player changes his/her schedule in between, then he/she needs to update the whereabouts information to the nodal officer either online or even through SMS. However, if the player is not in the location at the time specified, he/she will have a strike recorded against his name. Three such strikes and the player will have breached the code and can face up to a two-year suspension from the game.

Those in the ICC's testing pool feel that the code infringes on their privacy and personal space, especially during off-season or when they are not playing cricket.There are 11 Indian players in the ICC's IRTP, namely Harbhajan Singh, Gautam Gambhir, Irfan Pathan, Zaheer Khan, MS Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Munaf Patel, Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Jhulan Goswami and Mithali Raj. Apart from privacy and practicality issues, the Indian players, some of whom like Dhoni and Tendulkar, have received security threats from terrorist organisations before, have raised questions about the confidentiality and security risks involved in providing whereabouts information in advance..



WADA defends its policy though.. Through a Q&A section in their website they answer the questions..

What are whereabouts?
Whereabouts are information provided by a limited number of top elite athletes about their location to the International Sport Federation (IF) or National Anti-Doping Organization (NADO) that included them in their respective registered testing pool as part of these top elite athletes’ anti-doping responsibilities.

Why are whereabouts important for clean sport?
Because out-of-competition doping controls can be conducted without notice to athletes, they are one of the most powerful means of deterrence and detection of doping and are an important step in strengthening athlete and public confidence in doping-free sport. Accurate whereabouts information is crucial to ensure efficiency of the anti-doping programs, which are designed to protect the integrity of sport and to protect clean athletes.




What will happen if the Indian players continue to refuse to submit to the WADA code?
The ICC cannot let them participate in any match that is organised under its umbrella. The Indian players have already missed the July 31 deadline for filing the whereabouts information for the next quarter and face one 'strike' against their name..


The Federation of International Cricketers' Associations (FICA) has warned that if the ICC does not penalise India's players for failing to submit to the new anti-doping norms in time, it would ensure that players from all other countries would be relieved from similar obligations..