BCCI to shy away from National Anti-Doping Agency

Mumbai: The Board of Control for Cricket India’s Committee of Administrators will meet here on November 3 to chalk out a plan to deal with mounting pressure from the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA), which wants Indian cricketers under its ambit. However, it is unlikely that Indian cricket's governing body will budge from its current stand.

The top brass of the country’s cricket board believes that trying to get a Virat Kohli or Mahendra Singh Dhoni sign the 'whereabouts clause' is one of the main reasons behind NADA wanting the BCCI to come under its wing. 'Whereabouts' is information provided by a limited number of top elite athletes on their location to the International Sport Federation (ISF), or National Anti-Doping Organization (NADA in this case, which includes them in their respective registered testing pool as part of these elite athletes' anti-doping responsibilities.

The BCCI had hired Sweden's International Drug Testing Management (IDTM) for testing and is likely to continue with their services. There are reports that the NADA is likely to send its Doping Control Officers (DCO) for domestic tournaments, and if BCCI does not co-operate it will take the legal route.

"BCCI is not a signatory to NADA code and therefore under no compulsion to release our cricketers for the dope test. We are under ICC, which is WADA compliant. At ICC events our cricketers are tested by WADA, but since we are not a National Sports Federation (NSF), we are under no obligation to become a NADA signatory," a senior BCCI official, privy to the development said on Sunday.