Click to play videoMumbai: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Sunday backed its players on the 'Whereabouts Clause' of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and rejected the controversial clause that makes it mandatory for cricketers to be available for out of competition testing.
The decision to reject the clause, seen by many players as invading their privacy, was taken at an emergency meeting of the Working Committee in Mumbai. Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh were present in the meeting.
BCCI will also be sending as letter to the (International Cricket Council) ICC soon explaining the players' concern on the 'Whereabouts Clause'.
BCCI President Shashank Manohar said after the meeting that the 'Whereabouts Clause' has been rejected on the grounds that the clause is likely to compromise the security of Indian cricketers; secondly it is a direct and continuous invasion on players' privacy and thirdly, it violates the Indian Constitution which upholds the right to privacy.
"The players cannot be followed when they are not playing cricket. We can't support the 'Whereabouts Clause'. Some of the cricketers have security cover. When they have a security cover you can't disclose the whereabouts. The privacy of a cricketer can't be invaded. It is against the Constitution of India," Manohar said in Mumbai following the meeting which was also attended by some senior players.
"The cricketer cannot give information of his whereabouts 365 days in an year, 24 hours in a day. Indian Constitution does not allow us to do it," claimed the BCCI President.
However, the BCCI also sounded a reconciliatory note saying it did not have any problem with the anti-doping system.
"We don't have a problem with dope testing but with the system of testing.It can't be only one way channel where ICC says and the cricketer has to follow. The decision of the board was taken because of the concerns raised by the cricketers. Tendulkar, Dhoni, Sehwaj and Bhajji expressed their concerns," he said.
"The WADA system has to be acceptable to the cricketers. We agreed to dope testing but we were not aware of the system of dope testing," added Manohar.
The 'Whereabouts Clause' requires players to give information about their location three months for one hour every day in advance (between 0600 hrs IST and 2300 hrs IST) for out of competition tests.
The clause is a part of the WADA's revised International Standard for Testing (IST) that came into effect along with the revised Anti-Doping Code on January 1 this year.
The revised IST was approved by WADA's Executive Committee, composed in equal parts of representatives from governments and sport, on May 10 last year.
While most international sportspersons have signed the clause, Indian cricketers are not isolated either as football's governing FIFA is also not a signatory to the code.
Even all other cricket-playing countries have signed the anti-doping code.
The ICC had asked all its affiliated members to get their players sign the World Anti-Doping Agency's Code by July 31 but the BCCI was faced with the reluctance of 11 of its chosen cricketers, including two women, to comply with the code.
The 11 Indian cricketers who are part of the country's testing pool are Sachin Tendulkar, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Irfan Pathan, Munaf Patel, Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh, Jhulan Goswami and Mithali Raj.
The decision has once again put the BCCI on collision course with the ICC which has been backing WADA's anti-doping campaign.
So now the ICC may find itself in a difficult situation but is likely to take a conciliatory approach.
"This is a board issue. The ICC is grateful to players and BCCI. We have noted the decisions of the Working Committee and understand their concerns. The ICC and BCCI are committed to clean sport and confident of a resolution and a way forward," said ICC media manager Brian Murgatroyd.
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