 The apex cricket body of the world, the International Cricket Council (ICC) has finally decided to adopt a modified version of the anti-doping code. This
will also contain the changed version of the 'whereabouts' clause, which will
satisfy the demands of some of the cricket boards who had raised issues related
to security because of it.
By this new code of conduct, the players will fall into two different categories,
International Registered Testing Pool (IRTP) and the National Player Pool
(NPP). The first category will be for those cricketers who will be picked up
as potential risks, whereas the second category will have the top 88 players
from all over the world, that is, top 11 cricketers from the top eight countries.
These 88 players in the NPP, who will need to reveal their cricketing whereabouts
rather than the whereabouts of where they would be as was asked for earlier.
IRTP is a category for the repeat offenders, or those who are risks, especially
those who are coming off an injury lay-off. These players will need to abide
by the original whereabouts clause whch is what the boards had disagreed with.
Haroon Lorgat, the chief of ICC has said that the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) code has been finalised and will be signed by all the board
members. He also said that the modified code is the essence of what the WADA
wanted.
The ICC had included cricket as a signatory to the WADA code in November 2006
because of the one major reason; they wanted to include cricket as an Olympic
sport. However, BCCI objected to the whereabouts clause which meant that the
ICC could not go on with the same.
The main problem that the BCCI had was that it needed 11 players to reveal
to an ICC-nominated officer before every three months of the exact details of
their whereabouts for one hour every day. However, many top Indian cricketers
objected to this given the security hassles associated with the same and the
Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) supported them.
Then, there were other issues in the last one year, like concerns about local
involvement, non-duplicacy of things and the exact definition of who constitutes
an injured player.
The Professional Cricketer's Association has also approved the new code saying
that it is a much more sensible one.
Lorgat said that the new code was not a compromise of any sort, but a modification
because of the issues that the Indians faced.
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