The National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) seems to have gone easy on Indian cricket stalwarts Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma.
According to data released on the NADA website, 58 samples from 55 male and female cricketers were collected in the first five months of the year. More than half the samples were 'Out Of Competition' (OOC) tests.
Of these 51 were urine samples, while seven were blood samples.
But Sharma and Kohli were not tested even once. It must be noted though that this is not the fault of the players.
All-rounder Ravindra Jadeja was the most tested cricketer. He gave three samples between January and May.
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The overall number indicates that NADA, under whose ambit the BCCI reluctantly agreed to come in 2020, has upped its testing frequency after criticism that it was not testing players enough. In 2021 and 2022, respectively, NADA had collected 54 and 60 samples, respectively, from cricketers.
Those years, Sharma was the most tested cricketer with three samples for each year.
Kohli was not even tested once in 2021 and 2022. That means he has gone more than two and a half years without a single dope test by NADA.
Among women cricketers, only India captain Harmanpreet Kaur and vice-captain Smriti Mandhana were tested once each in the January-May period this year. These were OOC samples taken in Mumbai on January 12.
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Blood testing enables detection of substances that sometimes might not be traced in urine.
Blood samples also allow the use of longitudinal data collection, often referred to as the athlete biological passport (ABP).
Longitudinal data collection checks certain bio markers over a period of time to trace the use of performance-enhancing substances and/or methods.
Other well-known athletes tested in the January-May 2023 period include Olympic silver medallist weightlifter Mirabai Chanu, Olympic bronze medallist boxer Lovlina Borgohain, badminton stars Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth, wrestlers Bajrang Punia and Vinesh Phogat, hockey players Harmanpreet Singh, PR Sreejesh and Savita Punia.
The most tested were track and field athletes, accounting for nearly 500 samples. They were followed by weightlifting (around 200), boxing (more than 100), shooting and wrestling (more than 70 each), and football and hockey (more than 50 each).
