National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) has released the data of the Indian athletes, including cricketers, who underwent dope tests in this year so far. According to it, India all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja has been the most tested cricketer. He gave dope samples thrice from January to May 2023 even as a total of 55 cricketers, male and female, underwent dope testing in the first five months of 2023.
More than half of the samples have been taken 'Out of Competition' (OOC). Interestingly, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have not been tested yet this year while the former was the most tested cricketer in 2021 and 2022 with three samples in each year. Moreover, Kohli wasn't tested in these two years too. Hardik Pandya, currently leading India in the West Indies T20Is, was tested once, in April, when his 'Out of Competition' urine sample was taken.
The number of samples taken for testing are a lot more already this year and the number is likely to increase in the coming months too. According to the data released, NADA had collected 54 and 60 samples respectively from cricketers in 2021 and 2022 respectively. However, the number of women cricketers tested this year has come down drastically. Around 20 women cricketers underwent dope testing last year but this time around, so far, only two - Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana - have been tested.
Apart from Ravindra Jadeja, T Natarajan is another cricketer who underwent dope testing more than once. Other Indian cricketers to undergo dope testing this year so far are - uryakumar Yadav, KL Rahul, Ishan Kishan, Mohammed Siraj, Deepak Chahar, Mayank Agarwal, Rahul Tripathi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Wriddhiman Saha, Dinesh Karthik, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ambati Rayudu, Piyush Chawla and Manish Pandey.
A few foreign cricketers were also tested during the Indian Premier League (IPL) and they are - David Wiese, David Miller, Cameron Green, Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, David Warner, Rashid Khan, David Willey, Trent Boult, Marcus Stoinis, Mark Wood, Adam Zampa, Sam Curran, Liam Livingstone and Jofra Archer.
