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Cricket bodies must keep the game free of performance enhancing drugs

Sport is expected to operate at a higher moral plane where the effort is honest and transparency remains an abiding principle. It is a UTOPIAN ideal leaning on pure performance, COPIOUS sweat and RELENTLESS training. But in a practical world greased with greed, besides match-fixing, there is another terrible offence: ingestion of performance-enhancing drugs. Athletes like Canada’s Ben Johnson were labelled as drug-cheats and rightly denied their Olympic medals. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), since its inception in 1999, has imposed stringent measures so that sport stays drug-free. In India, WADA’s rules have been enforced by the Government-run National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) and almost all sports federations had fallen in line except one BEHEMOTH — the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). But that aberration was erased as the BCCI accepted NADA’s supervision following a meeting between its CEO Rahul Johri, General Manager Saba Karim and Sports Ministry officials led by Sports Secretary Radhey Shyam Julaniya. Indian cricket’s governing body finally agreed to subject its players to NADA’s testing routines. Before its turn-around, the BCCI had resisted NADA’s intervention. The main objection pertained to the ‘WHERE-ABOUTS’ clause, which made it mandatory for a player to reveal where he would be on a daily basis. The need for privacy was offered as an excuse.

 Earlier, the BCCI had its in-house dope-tests but it only lent credence to the allegations about conflict of interest. The issue came to a boil when Prithvi Shaw was given a back-dated eight-month suspension after he tested positive for a banned drug, TERBUTALINE. The 19-year-old batsman, who was checked in February, claimed that the substance was present in an OVER-THE-COUNTER cough syrup. Shaw’s excuse and the BCCI’s quick acceptance of his self-medication, BRED scepticism. It is either NAIVETY or a classic cover-up from an Indian cricketer, who had been advised about the chemicals that have to be avoided even for therapeutic purposes. The silver-lining is that the episode hastened the BCCI’s move into the NADA’s ambit and also cleared the decks for the Indian women’s cricket team to compete in the 2022 Commonwealth Games at Birmingham. With the BCCI belatedly allowing NADA to monitor its domestic cricketers, by extension the International Cricket Council too has finally come under the WADA’s UNERRING gaze. In these hyper-kinetic times, it is a fallacy to stress that cricket is just a reflection of skill and that drug-enhanced muscular efficiency cannot influence match results. Sport has to be a level playing-field and it is finally one with the willow-game subjecting itself to universal drug-testing rules.

 1.UTOPIAN (adj)-modelled on or aiming for a state in which everything is perfect; idealistic.

 2.COPIOUS (adj)-abundant, lush, rich, bountiful, ample,प्रचुर

 3.RELENTLESS (adj)- continuing in a severe or extreme way.लगातार,निष्ठुर ढंग से

 4.BEHEMOTH (n)-something enormous, especially a large and powerful organization.विशालकाय

 5.TERBUTALINE(n)-a synthetic compound with bronchodilator properties, used especially in the treatment of asthma.

 6.OVER-THE-COUNTER (phrase)-by ordinary retail purchase, with no need for a prescription or licence.

 7.BRED (n)-race, caste, nation, species,etc.जाति,नस्ल

 8.NAIVETY (n)-simplicity, naivety, directness, plainness, chastity, sobriety,सादगी,भोलापन

 9.UNERRING (adj)-always accurate in your judgment or ability.

 10.WHERE-ABOUTS-the place where someone or something is.

The Hindu (12-Aug-2019)