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NEW DELHI: Ahmed Shehzad has sparked controversy by accusing the Board of Control for Cricket in India of not allowing the International Cricket Council to directly conduct doping tests on Indian players. His comments came during the ongoing ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026, after India national cricket team had reached the semi-finals.Speaking on a Pakistani channel, Shehzad claimed that India handles its own anti-doping checks instead of relying on the ICC’s testing system.
He alleged that the Indian board prefers to conduct the tests itself because it does not trust outside technology. “ICC does the dope tests [sic] for the entire world except India. Their own board does it for them. Sir, they don’t give it to the ICC; they say we have our own board, which would determine. The Indians have said that we don’t trust any technology outside, we have good technology, so we would do the dope test for our own players,” Shehzad said.However, international cricket follows strict anti-doping rules based on the standards of the World Anti-Doping Agency. The ICC has been a signatory to the WADA Code since 2006, meaning players across the world are subject to strict testing rules.The ICC conducts both in-competition and out-of-competition tests, often without prior notice. Specially trained officers collect blood or urine samples, which are split into two parts called “A” and “B” samples and tested at WADA-accredited laboratories. If the first sample shows a banned substance, the player is provisionally suspended and can request the second sample to be tested. If the result is confirmed, the player can face a long ban from cricket.Meanwhile, the BCCI’s anti-doping system works under National Anti-Doping Agency, which the board joined in 2019. Since NADA also follows WADA rules, Indian players are still tested under the same global anti-doping standards used in international sport.
