The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Ignorance is no valid defence

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Thursday, Oct 19, 2006
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Ignorance is no valid defence

In a world of sporting grunting and heaving, cricket appears almost a studious pursuit. Not that it is without explosiveness, but it is preferably seen as alive with conspiracies about flight and treatises on angles, a game that looks to patience and concentration. The only drug here is the game itself.

Cricket people no doubt see vulgarities such as steroids and hormones as the domain of less distinguished lifters who rain sweat over their barbells and straining rowers whose neck chords stand at attention. Those fellows might know their way around testosterone; cricketers, poor chaps, might think EPO is Economy Per Over.

Perhaps this is why cricket has affected surprise over the positive drug tests of Akhtar and Asif, but this is dangerous naivety. No sport involving humans is safe from banned performance-enhancing drugs simply because humans cheat. For god's sake, snooker players have taken beta blockers.

Drugs, we might have believed, would scarcely assist a tennis player as he imparted spin, sought to hit lines and stayed balanced. Furthermore, as Andre Agassi said in 2004: "We test so extensively that we have absolutely removed the possibility of somebody taking drugs."

Explosive action

Yet in recent times, French Open finalists Guillermo Coria and Mario Puerta, Guillermo Canas and teenager Sesil Karatantcheva, among others, have been suspended for popping what they shouldn't.

Cricket, too, remains a skill-based sport, but like all pursuits its power components are growing. John Gloster, the Indian physio, describes the game as involving "lots of explosive action" like fielding and running between wickets. If these fellows are artists, they paint at high speed.

Former physio Andrew Leipus says fast bowlers could "add a few yards" with steroid use, which also assists in injury prevention, for as he says "a stronger body handles the stresses better". Undoubtedly, McGrathian exactness supersedes raw pace, and spin and batsmanship remain mostly beyond the influence of drugs.

Over-reaction is not required and this present case might not be more than stupidity. But neither should cricket believe it operates on another planet.

Match-fixing should have demonstrated that. The game must keep paying attention, for cheats look for the smallest of edges, especially as bodies tire in a game with no season.

Defying the temptation

The PGA Tour recently said it has no need for drug testing programmes because it sees no evidence of usage. Golf is mostly a self-policing game and believes it is ethically superior. It, incredibly, expects every player to resist the temptation to illegally find 10 more yards in a game where power is now vital.

Tiger Woods was not impressed and said: "I don't know when we could get that (drug tests) implemented. Tomorrow would be fine with me. I think we should be proactive instead of reactive. I just think we should be ahead of it." So should cricket.

Malcolm Speed, boss of the ICC which has a drug code, said "five of our members — England, South Africa, Pakistan, New Zealand and Australia — carry out regular testing within their own countries". India 's name was disquietingly absent.

No policy

The last drug test the Indians took outside a World Cup was before the 2003 World Cup. It hardly helps that no accredited doping lab exists in India. No anti-doping policy exists either. Presumably this means an Indian player, if miraculously tested in the Ranji Trophy, and found positive, could escape punishment.

Within the team, the dutiful Gloster says "all medication, whether for headache or a body oil, is to be approved by me", and he checks them against the list of banned substances.

Literature on drugs is apparently handed out, but only in English, which is insufficient in a dressing room of many languages and in a nation where players now emerge from small towns. It is not time to be paranoid but diligent. Ignorance is not a valid defence for drug use. Neither is official inaction.

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