BCCI under NADA: Writing was on the wall, say BCCI insiders

NADA will test cricketers "wherever and whenever it wants''

BCCI elections on October 22, announces CoA The much-awaited elections of the BCCI will be held on October 22 | AFP

"BCCI has come under the ambit of NADA. I explained to them you don’t have the discretion to follow the law or not. It applies to all uniformly. India is governed by rule of law. Everyone is equal before law. The cricket board has agreed."

These were the words of Radhey Shyam Jhulaniya, secretary, sports ministry, after a two-hour long meeting with BCCI officials and lawyers at the ministry headquarters in New Delhi.

With this, BCCI's stubborn resistance to come under the ambit of any arm of the Union government came to an end. It appears that the latest doping scandal involving young India opener Prithvi Shaw made the sports ministry crack the whip on the Board. Questions were raised on the opaqueness of the results management, the manner in which he was handed a punishment and also the quantum of the punishment. There are issues related to the timelines in Shaw's case that left too many loopholes.

It also comes at a time when the day-to-day matters of Indian cricket are being run by the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators. The Board awaits a final verdict on the three-year long battle opposing Justice R.M. Lodha Committee reforms.

The BCCI team, led by CEO Rahul Johri and including Saba Karim, general manager, cricket operations, and aided by its legal team, has agreed in writing to come under the ambit of the NADA even as it raised a few concerns related to the anti-doping process and mechanisms and their effectiveness. "We have to follow the rules of the land and BCCI is committed to following the law that exists," said Johri after the meeting. "Whoever is in existence, law of land is there. You and I cannot decide where and when," Johri added. “We have raised all concerns, listed them out, and they have agreed to address it,"said Johri. He confirmed that the testing will start from the upcoming season when domestic and international matches will take place.

It was bound to happen one day. This is what veteran cricket administrators and BCCI members, who have been in the know about matters related to the Board's relations with the government and matters related to anti-doping. They admitted that from the very beginning, BCCI's decision to stay outside NADA's ambit was wrong. "It was becoming difficult to hold on to this stance on NADA for the past 2-3 years. The Board members thought this arrangement we had with International Dope Testing Management (IDTM) would work out in the long term. When we brought in the Anti-Doping Code based on WADA, all other ICC member countries were following the WADA code, wherein the doping agency controlling their programme was their National Anti Doping Organisation (NADO). Only we were the exception. All reference to NADO in the original code was struck down by us while drafting our Anti-Doping Code,"said a senior cricket administrator well versed with the matters of the Board.

The official further explained that the BCCI kept taking refuge in the argument that it was an autonomous sports body which was not taking any financial help from the government and therefore need not come under the ambit of NADA.

The members admitted that it was all about the government showing intent. Reportedly, many senior BCCI leaders felt that there would be no push from the government to fall in line, but clearly it had become obvious especially in the last two years, when BCCI itself was at its weakest that the government would not show any leniency to it.

In fact, Jhulaniya who has managed a coup of sorts in a short time since he took charge, has done what many thought was impossible. NADA as and when it wants to test, will test the cricketers. The WADA authorises the national body to do all the testing. All Indian athletes come under NADA. Till now, Sweden-based IDTM has been collecting the cricketers' samples and submitting them to the WADA-accredited National Dope Testing Laboratory (NDTL) in New Delhi.

"IDTM was an outside agency hired by BCCI to take samples. Now that agency will be NADA. I explained to BCCI you don't have a discretion to abide by law or not. The law applies to everyone equally,” said Jhulaniya, making it clear that BCCI will no longer be able to use the services of private agency IDTM to collect samples during matches.

For a long time, DG NADA, Naveen Aggarwal, was under pressure from the WADA to get the BCCI to follow the National Anti Doping Code but he had met with resistance from a Board which had political heavyweights.

As per today's developments, there were questions raised on the sticky whereabouts clause of WADA which has been BCCI's and Indian cricketers' bone of contention with WADA. The cricketers felt that it invaded their privacy and the BCCI had come to a special arrangement with ICC and WADA that it would provide the names of the players who could be tested out of competition, location and place for random testing.

Largely, three major concerns were raised by the BCCI on NADA's role and its resistance to it in cricket. "The first concern was the quality of dope testing kit—whether it is WADA accredited kit or not. We addressed the concern. Second was quality of dope control officers who take the samples. We told them we have officers who are competent, but if you need officers of higher qualification then you have to pay higher fees and it will not be just for the BCCI, but all other federations. If you need super specialist pathologists, we have no issue. But pay higher. Thirdly, the concern was about timely adjudication of cases. I explained to them the WADA charter about the three-month window, but if the athlete is not asking for time then we have had cases being disposed off in less than 90 days," said Jhulaniya.

Johri said that the ministry had promised to address the concerns.