Battle to keep Twenty20s drug-free
The economist Gary Becker was once late for an appointment. So he chose to park on the street illegally, calculating that the low chance of being caught was worth the risk. He did not get a ticket, and declared that ‘‘criminal behaviour is rational’’ – those who break laws weigh up the risks of an action against the rewards.
Now, consider cricket today. Just as for other athletes, to cricketers doping might seem not a reckless or irresponsible act, but a deeply rational one. The rewards of doping can be astronomical, and, for many cricketers, the risks of being caught appear minute.
These fears are driven by Twenty20. Already, there are hints of cricket’s new ecosystem opening the sport up to a heightened risk of performance-enhancing drugs. In 2017, two leading T20 players were banned for doping offences. Andre Russell, an effervescent allrounder, failed to file his whereabouts with doping officials three times in a year. Afghanistan’s Mohammad Shahzad, at the time ranked the seventh best T20 batsman in the world, tested positive for the banned substance clenbuterol in an out-of-competition test.
And this week it was revealed that India’s Yusuf Pathan had failed a drugs test during a domestic T20 competition last year. His urine sample contained the banned substance terbutaline – a drug which, like clenbuterol, can increase strength and power.
It is common to refer to T20 as not just a different game to the longer formats, but essentially a completely new sport. And it is one whose dynamics create far more potential benefits for players who dope.
‘‘We know the International Cricket Council and World AntiDoping Authority view that the power-based skill set required in T20 makes it a sport that fits within a similar profile to baseball,’’ says Tony Irish, the head of the game’s players’ association.
Just as baseball hitters used drugs – principally steroids – to bulk up, so the fear is that T20 batsmen will do the same. Where physical strength matters relatively little in test cricket, T20 leagues pay a premium for players who can muscle sixes – and so offer far greater potential benefits from doping.
‘‘T20, being a more athletic and dynamic version, places increased demands on cricketers’ bodies and power outputs,’’ says Andrea Petroczi, a specialist in doping from Kingston University in London. ‘‘This makes the sport more prone to drugs that promote muscle development and increase lean muscle mass - anabolic steroids and other anabolic agents.’’
Paradoxically, cricketers’ increased professionalism has also made the sport more vulnerable. Until a few years ago, few players trained intensely enough to be in a position to benefit from taking steroids.
While batsmen are the most obviously beneficiaries of doping, there are also huge incentives for bowlers, too. By giving players greater strength, doping could help bowlers attain new speeds.
Perhaps most importantly of all, steroids can also help players, especially quick bowlers, who are generally more injury-prone, recover more quickly, allowing them to play in more T20 leagues.
Missing a season of the Indian Premier League can cost a player $1 million.
Even missing a few matches brings a huge financial cost. In the IPL, for instance, players’ fees are on a per-match basis, with cricketers earning only 50 per cent of their allocated match fee if they are unavailable for a game.
As cricket has become more orientated around domestic T20 leagues the policing of the sport has not kept pace. The ICC is aware of the challenge to protect the integrity of cricket: it conducted 547 drugs tests in 2016, and introduced blood testing from the Champions Trophy last year. Yet, as in many other areas, the ICC’s powers are limited. Its remit is restricted to testing current international players – so excludes many of the freelance T20 players who are among the world’s bestpaid cricketers.
Within cricket, there is a ‘‘clear requirement for a more global approach to player education on integrity issues such as antidoping,’’ says Irish.
Those who do not play international cricket can still face drug testing: from their national and regional anti-doping agencies, their home boards and T20 leagues themselves. Yet there is no standardised testing in T20 leagues and a dangerous inconsistency between the vigilance of national anti-doping authorities, and player education, in different countries. So the risk-reward calculation for would-be dopers is more favourable in Bangladesh, say, than Australia – even though many of the top players in Bangladesh’s T20 league earn more than those in the Big Bash.
With a few exceptions, it is also rare for leagues to do blood testing, so players could pass tests even if they are doping: after all, Lance Armstrong passed 250 drugs tests and failed none.
Even in both cricket’s highprofile doping cases last year it is dubious how great the punishment actually was. Russell played on for another 11 months after missing three drugs tests in 2015 – a period in which he helped the West Indies win the World Twenty20 and earned around $1 million in T20 leagues – before his suspension, and has already got a contract with Kolkata Knight Riders for the 2018 IPL season. Shahzad received a 12-month ban – but this was backdated to when he failed the test. Imagine someone receiving a year-long prison sentence for robbery, and not being caught for several months, yet their sentence being backdated to the moment the crime took place.
Pathan, even more bizarrely, was handed a backdated fivemonth ban, which expires on Sunday – yet he actually played two first-class matches in October, two months into his notional ban.
No cricketing myth is more insidious than that of the sport’s moral superiority. It is deeply ingrained in cricket to consider itself more virtuous than other games. This sometimes encourages the sport to be lax in policing itself. Consider how cricket bumbled along in the 1990s until being forced to confront endemic match-fixing.
Go back 20 years and, many of the arguments that are now cricket’s comfort blanket were honed in Major League Baseball. That sport was said to be too skill based and too subtle for drug cheats to benefit. This notion was shattered when Congressional hearings uncovered rampant doping.
Cricket has so far been mercifully free of such doping scandals. Yet keeping the sport free from drugs cheats will be harder than ever in the age of T20.