More awareness on anti-doping stressed
The local sports authorities have emphasised on more awareness about doping after two international cricketers of Sri Lanka and Pakistan were tested positive recently.
Sri Lanka’s wicketkeeper-batsman Kusal Perera faces a lengthy four-year ban after he failed in an out-of-competition anti-doping test in October.Before the cricketing world could absorb the shock, the International Cricket Council on Sunday provisionally suspended Pakistan’s talented leg-spinner Yasir Shah after being tested positive in November.
The twin suspension sent a chilling wave to Bangladesh Cricket Board, which is waiting for the result of at least two cricketers, tested during the recent Bangladesh Premier League.
The BCB adopted its first domestic anti-doping code in September this year and implemented it for the first time in BPL, where six randomly selected local and international cricketers were tested.
The samples collected from them were sent to National Dope Testing Laboratory in New Delhi, one of the 32 World Anti-Doping Agency accredited laboratories in the world.
‘So far we received the result of four cricketers. They are all tested negative,’ said BCB physician Debashish Chowdhury. ‘We are now waiting for the result of two other cricketers.’
Debashish refused to disclose the identity of the cricketers, but it was learnt that one of the six cricketers tested during the tournament is former Sri Lankan captain Kumar Sangakkara.
Debashish said that they will now follow BCB’s anti-doping code in all domestic first-class and List –A tournaments as it has become a very serious issue globally.
‘The most important thing is awareness,’ said Debashish. ‘We have conducted several programmes involving national and club cricketers.
‘But I feel we need to do more. Many of our players take herbal medicine without knowing the ingredients. This could be very dangerous for them.’
Debashish also emphasised on capacity building for result management, something that is completely absent in Bangladesh.
‘If any cricketer is tested positive it could become a legal issue. We need to have a committee, comprising lawyer, physician and sports personalities for the result management. But we have none at the moment,’ he said.
The BCB physician also insisted that the issue needs to be addressed nationally as other sports federation can face the similar problem in future.
Currently the BCB is not entitled to conduct the dope test on its own because of a conflict of interest. In BPL it engaged Bangladesh Olympic Association for conducting the dope tests.
BOA medical committee member-secretary Shafiqur Rahman said they are also putting enough emphasis on doping issue.
‘Since we took over the charge of BOA one-and-half years ago, we conducted at least nine seminars to raise awareness on doping,’ Rahman told New Age.
‘Recently we have received a fund of $20,000 from UNICEF for conducting more anti-doping awareness campaigns. This will be a great help for us,’ he said.
Rahman added that they also spoke to sports ministry about making the National Anti-Doping Organisation more functional to address the issue.
‘It [NADO] remained inactive for a long period,’ he said. ‘If we can make it functional it will help us address the issue perfectly,’ he said.
-With New Age input
