Thaindian News

New Delhi, May 25 (IANS) World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has set November 2011 as the deadline for the Indian cricket board to comply with its controversial whereabouts clause.
WADA director general David Howman said if the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) does not meet the deadline, it would be declared “non-compliant”.

Howman made it clear that cricketers will not get any concession and they will have to be available 24×7 for testing.

“We will not hesitate from declaring the BCCI as non-compliant. But their participation and eligibility should be done by the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA),” said Howman.

Howman said it is the responsibility of the International Cricket Council (ICC) to make sure that all the member associations accept the clause.

“If the member countries don’t agree to the clause, the ICC will be declared as non-compliant and the sport will face the consequences. Thirteen thousand athletes have accepted the whereabout clause and there has been no breach of privacy, it is not a big deal,” he said.

Howman said that he would be happy to discuss the issue with cricketers and pointed out that the BCCI should liaise with the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) and form an anti-doping programme.

“We need to have similar programmes for South Africa, England and the West Indies. (Anil) Kumble is a member of WADA and he understands the rules. We need to give more informtaion to players and administrators to make them aware of the situation,” he said.

Howman also expressed his disgust at the fact that WADA has no information on the testing pool of cricketers.

“We don’t have any knowledge of whereabouts of players, no list of players for the testing pool in competition testing. We generally carry it out on fast bowlers because they are the ones who can benefit out of it. Out of the 14,000 samples collected this year, 200 were from cricket in Indian Premier League (IPL) and other domestic events,” he said.

Howman also said the underworld was playing an important role in the sale of EPOs and Human Growth Hormone to athletes.

“The challenge for WADA is to curb the sale of these substances. We are working with the Interpol to develop laws so this challenge can be met. Underworld is also working and is chanelising the money from match fixing in the sale of these banned energy enhancing substances,” he said.