Sports Ministry wins territorial battle with BCCI, but road ahead just got tougher for NADA, NDTL

A long, obdurate innings of defiance came to a predictable end on Friday, with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) agreeing with the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports that its dope-testing programme would come under the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) rather than remain independent as has been the case thus far.

BCCI’s resistance started years after the Government notified the formation of NADA in 2005. The International Cricket Council (ICC) became a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) signatory in 2006 but it was not until 2009-10 that the BCCI took the task of introducing an anti-doping regime seriously. No amount of pressure from ICC made BCCI agree to be under the ambit of NADA.

The primary reason was a lurking fear that it would have to submit itself to the National Sports Development Code of India, 2011, which is a set of directions that the Sports Ministry issued to the National Sports Federations. BCCI kept proffering a number of excuses — from player privacy to quality of testing, from delays in result management to inefficiency.

There was also a time recently when BCCI sought to confuse public opinion by implying that NADA and the National Dope Testing Laboratory (NDTL) were the same institutions. When there were reports about samples testing positive in the Montreal laboratory after NDTL declared them dope negative, BCCI took its chances by portraying NDTL as ineffective .

It even suggested that since it was not a ‘National Sports Federation’ recognised by the Sports Ministry, it need not be covered by NADA’s protocols. But anyone who spent time reading the NADA Anti-Doping Rules 2015, which are drawn from the WADA Code 2015, would be able to tell that BCCI was only flexing its financial and social muscles.

Of course, the clout BCCI enjoyed in the political circles and the backing it received from leaders cutting across party lines also allowed it to remain ‘independent’ of NADA’s anti-doping testing programme thus far. It needed a strong political will in the government circles to ensure that BCCI would come under the NADA fold.

Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju and the Secretary, Sports, in the Ministry, Radhey Shyam Julaniya, can take the credit for breaking BCCI’s resistance. They left BCCI with no room for maneuver with a deadpan approach over the past few weeks. BCCI Chief Executive Officer Rahul Johri had to perforce let NADA run its anti-doping testing and result management.

BCCI reached the cul-de-sac with the Ministry being unrelenting in its all-or-nothing approach and with a deadline to send out invites to the South Africa A and women’s teams and facilitate visas for their players to enter India. The Board’s old mandarins may have called off the twin tours to buy themselves some time and pull political strings.

Of course, BCCI tried to swing opinion their way by releasing information in public domain — and, at times, taking the old-fashioned subterranean route as well. But when it finally saw the writing on the wall, it caved in and conceded ground to the Ministry as well as to the National Anti-Doping Agency on Friday.

This is perhaps the first indication that the Board will not be treated with kid gloves anymore as far as the Sports Ministry is concerned. The protection that it enjoyed from people in the corridors of power may be drawing to a close. The next step may be to acknowledge that it is a National Sports Federation, after all.

The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, on its part, will have to engage more members on the hearing panels so that justice is dispensed with in keeping with the NADA Anti-Doping Rules 2015. At the moment of writing, more than 75 cases are pending before the Disciplinary Panel, at least half of them from 2018. Surely, professional athletes cannot afford such inordinate delays.

Yet, there must be cringing, elected officials who started the resistance to NADA’s testing protocol and the Committee of Administrators who stayed on that road as far as BCCI’s own anti-doping policy was concerned. They would never have envisaged the dawn of such a day when BCCI would agree to come under NADA’s wings, like all other National Sports Federations.

The ICC’s corridors must be echoing with sighs of relief. Having backed BCCI’s ‘robust’ anti-doping programme as recently as last week, ICC would be secretly pleased that a long-drawn battle has come to an end in the only way possible. It can now focus its energies on staying WADA-compliant and pushing for the game to be part of the Olympic Games now.

Yet, if NADA believed this was the end of the story, it can have another thought coming. For, the road ahead can be tougher than it has been thus far. Winning this battle for control of anti-doping testing of cricketers is one thing, conducting the tests right and ensuring reliable result management is altogether another.

The ball is in NADA and NDTL’s court. The two institutions need to get their act together and ensure that all of Indian sport is as dope-free as is possible. As is pretty common knowledge in the anti-doping circles, both organisations have been slack. It is now up to them to show that they can do the job with greater efficiency.

There cannot be delays in the anti-doping process. BCCI and the players have money to play around with if they need to engage lawyers to defend themselves against anti-doping rule violation charges before the National Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel and the National Anti-Doping Appeal Panel. Indeed, NADA and NDTL will be more challenged now than ever before.