WADA to carry out tests on cricketers ahead of Champions Trophy
- Apart from blood tests, urine tests will also be carried out on players before they take the field in Champions Trophy.
- These tests can confirm if the cricketers are resorting to performance-enhancing drugs or steroids ahead of the tournament.
FollowDoping has crawled into the world of sports slowly over a certain period of time and this is not a good sign. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has now taken a serious step to keep drug abuse away from the game of cricket. WADA will conduct blood test of cricketers ahead of the much-awaited ICC Champions Trophy 2017, which is supposed to be held in England and Wales.
Apart from blood tests, urine tests will also be carried out on players before they take the field in Champions Trophy. These tests can confirm if the cricketers are resorting to performance-enhancing drugs or steroids ahead of the tournament.
The blood samples will be used later to examine specific growth hormones. Through these examinations, WADA can find out why the batsmen around the world become so aggressive during batting out there in the middle.
"Cricket has been WADA compliant since 2006 but our players still only undergo in-competition random tests, where their urine samples are collected. But there are a lot of performance enhancing drugs and steroids in circulation out there which aren't visible in urine samples but will show up in your blood," a WADA official told Indian Express.
"Blood-testing is part of what WADA terms 'smart testing'. The cricketers were understandably wary of having their blood drawn. But they were briefed on how it's for the good of the game and they agreed.”
WADA has already asked for the blood samples of the cricketers. The Anti-Doping Agency has even stated that they will preserve these blood samples for 10 years and conduct fresh tests every six months. This will help them to find out any discrepancies by the comparing the samples with the initial samples.
West Indies cricketer Andre Russell was recently banned from cricket for a year as he was found using banned substance. Is WADA’s decision to carry out tests on cricketers ahead of the Champions Trophy 2017 is an after effect of Russell’s ban? However only time will tell what we have in store but WADA should have taken this step long back to keep the gentlemen’s game clean.
ICC Champions Trophy 2017 will kick-start in England in June. India are the defending champions and they will look to defend their title but under Virat Kohli and not MS Dhoni.
