BCCI sings old tune as Rathore softens stand

The NADA-BCCI row is back to square one. Or so it looks from the way the two sides have adopted differing postures in recent days.

The statement of the Union Sports Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore on the day of Delhi Half Marathon that he was glad that cricket was getting doping control done through an outside agency has come as a surprise to those who believe in international protocols when it comes to anti-doping authority and measures.

Was the minister quoted correctly? That was the question that cropped up immediately as one saw the reports. Going through several reports the next day one realized that he may not have been defending the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in opting for its own doping control but wanted a solution to a ticklish issue to be worked out by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). One could yet be wrong in this assessment.

The issue has got more clouded than it was when it started with the report that WADA wanted the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) to have control of cricket’s anti-doping tasks also in order to become fully compliant with the Code.

Clarity needed

A few points need further clarity, however.

The WADA Code and the International Cricket Council (ICC) anti-doping code give the authority to test cricketers at the domestic level to the National Anti-Doping Organization (NADO). In India’s case it is the NADA.

This authority has not been granted to the NADOs by the WADA because of the inability of the National sports federations in each country in each sport to carry out the anti-doping activities but because the sportsworld at large wanted uniformity in testing, results management, hearing procedures, sanctions etc. It also wanted an independent organization to do this work rather than various national federations or the National Olympic Committees (NOCs) being entrusted with the responsibility.

In bringing all sports under its fold in 2009, the Indian NADA did not go into the efficiency of the anti-doping system adopted by each NSF nor was it supposed to do that; it had to bring them into its fold as per the Code and it did. Except for cricket, that is.

Cricket resisted, with the BCCI refusing to accept the ICC rules, prompted by leading players opposing the ‘whereabouts’ rules in 2009 since the players felt that these were too intrusive. That position has more or less remained except for the fact that a mutually agreeable ‘whereabouts’ system was worked out by the ICC and WADA in 2010 and that in turn was acceptable to the BCCI.

The WADA gives the international federations enough space to draw up a ‘whereabouts’ system that is most suited for that particular sport. Cricket’s system is based on team training sessions and hotel locations during match days.

NADOs, however, could be having a different methodology in designing its registered testing pool (RTP). That is where the Indian problem comes, or so it is being made out. Why such a preferential treatment should be given to Indian cricketers has not been explained so far by anyone.

Now that WADA wants the NADA to be compliant in every sense the latter has to gain control over all sports in India irrespective of whether that sport has gained Government recognition or not.

Going by the ICC anti-doping code

“We do everything by the ICC anti-doping code” is a refrain that the BCCI often falls back on. The BCCI conveniently forgets that the ICC rules also demand that a NADO also be given the authority to test in domestic cricket and manage relevant tasks.

There is no method by which the ICC can get Indian cricketers tested in domestic competitions through WADA, as has been suggested or hinted by the Sports Minister.

For one thing, the ICC rules apply only to ‘international-level players’. For another, domestic testing is the prerogative of the National federation (BCCI or NADO where in existence and delegated as per ICC template for its members).

The ICC rules state: The ICC Code applies solely to International-Level Players. Cricket players participating at the national level are governed by the anti-doping rules of the National Cricket Federation under whose jurisdiction they participate (including in relation to TUEs and appeals).

Though WADA can test any athlete in any sport anywhere in the world, it is generally not in the business of testing athletes unless engaged by another agency which may not have the resources or reach to test an athlete in a foreign country, or in a situation where it is needed to conduct a few out-of-competition tests of its own. In this case, the ICC having no authority to test Indian cricketers outside the definition of “international-level” players, because of its own rules, it should be presumed it will not request WADA to test the country’s domestic players under its rules and authority.

Thus, it has to be either NADA, which, going by all rules, has the jurisdiction to test domestic-level cricketers in India, or the BCCI which exercises its “sole authority” to test domestic players and in tournaments under its banner through a special privilege granted to it by the ICC.

WADA obviously cannot go against its own Code in granting any special authority to a National federation in any sport. The Code does not contain any reference to national federations.

The BCCI’s oft-repeated, worn-out argument that it follows the ICC anti-doping code is irrelevant in this context. Every national federation in India follows its international federation's rules. Because of that it has neither usurped NADA’s rights nor ignored the international federation’s regulations.

For example, though the re-instatement testing is no longer part of the Code, the IAAF continues to insist on these tests and every international athlete who has undergone a suspension of over two years has to undergo three reinstatement tests which the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) oversees in co-ordination with NADA. Though these tests are not mandatory for domestic-level athletes, the AFI had been going through with such tests.

The AFI also has the responsibility of conducting hearings when an Indian athlete is charged with an anti-doping rule violation in an international competition or in a test conducted by IAAF or any other competent agency on an ‘international-level’ athlete. It is another matter that during the past six years, the IAAF has entrusted this responsibility to the Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel (ADDP) of India on a case-by-case basis.

AFI wanted in-competition testing rights

The AFI was the first National federation in India to formally write to NADA in 2008 that it wished to continue with its right to test ‘in-competition’ in its events even as it agreed with NADA’s jurisdiction to test out of competition. NADA rejected the proposal.

The competence of the BCCI to test Indian cricketers need not be questioned here to advance a proposal “let WADA test them”. That is not the debating point at this moment nor has it been in respect of other National federations in 2008-2009. If the BCCI could understand that it is not the number of tests it is conducting that is under scrutiny nor is it about its capacity to handle ‘results management’ and hearing procedures, but the right of the NADA to test within the territory of India, much of the problem could have been solved many summers ago.

By repeatedly confusing the issue with number of samples it has collected_more than any other National cricket body since 2013, but lower than the ICC_or the international sample-collection agency it has engaged from Sweden (IDTM), the BCCI might have succeeded in making out a case for its continued right to test domestically as far as the public and media are concerned. But, for the ICC to be Code-compliant, it will have to tell the BCCI to follow its code and the WADA Code.

Sample numbers take a plunge

By the way, from a high of 311 urine samples in 2014, the BCCI came down to 176 samples in 2015 and 153 samples in 2016. The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA), which tests under the delegated authority of Cricket Australia, was just two tests behind in 2016. The only country to have done blood tests in cricket so far, between 2012 and 2016, is Australia.

By suggesting that the BCCI could have “trusted” NADA, instead of carrying out its own anti-doping measures, Rathore has, even if perhaps unwittingly, softened the stand that the ministry seemed to have taken initially by asking NADA to go ahead with testing cricketers.  There is no room in the Code for National federations to make its choice in domestic testing including in-competition testing based on its own assessment of competence and resources of a NADO. It is a letdown NADA would have least bargained for at a time it had the backing of WADA on the issue.

Can the Indian public and the media trust the BCCI to have done a competent job when it is not even announcing either the names or the details about any hearing process for four positive cases of cricketers in its tests between 2013 and 2016 except that of Delhi pacer Pradeep Sangwan in the 2013 IPL?

The BCCI has lived up to its reputation as a sports body different from the rest of them that cannot survive without Government support and thus offer little resistance. In this case, the rest of the federations have rightly accepted the authority of NADA since the world anti-doping structure demands it. The BCCI is just showing off its financial and political clout in defying the Government and the NADA.