Highlights
- John Campbell violated anti-doping rules in West Indies
- The controversy follows just a week after Shimron Hetmyer was dropped form the West Indies squad
- The West Indies will play in the qualifiers to qualify for the Super 12 stage of the T20 World Cup
West Indies batter John Campbell has been slapped with a four-year ban for violation of an anti-doping rule, according to a Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission (JADCO) decision seen by Reuters. Friday's 18-page decision by a three-member independent panel followed a charge of evading, refusing or failing to submit to sample collection.
Campbell played 20 Test matches, six one-day internationals and two Twenty20 internationals for the West Indies, before JADCO accused him of refusing to provide a blood sample at his home in Kingston in April.
"The panel is persuaded to a comfortable degree of satisfaction that the athlete committed an anti-doping rule violation, namely breach of JADCO rule 2.3," the decision read in part.
"The panel does not find, on the evidence presented, that the athlete's anti-doping violation was not intentional.
"In the circumstances of this case the athlete is ineligible for a period of 4 years," it added, citing the applicable JADCO rule 10.3.1, with the ban backdated to start from notification of the violation on May 10 this year.
The controversy follows just a week after the West Indies board took strict action against Shimron Hetmyer who missed a rescheduled flight to Australia after he failed to report. The consequence of the same saw Hetmyer being dropped from the West Indies squad for the T20 World Cup in Australia.
Hetmyer's original flight was postponed at his request due to family reasons, which meant he would have had to skip the first of two T20 warm-ups against Australia on Wednesday.
Shamarh Brooks was then announced as the replacement for the star batter who represents Rajasthan Royals (RR) in the Indian Premier League (IPL). West Indies are already without the likes of Andre Russell, Kieron Pollard and Sunil Narine for the tournament down under in Australia.
The West Indies recently lost the two-match T20I series against Australia by 2-0 and Hetmyer’s absence comes as a huge blow to the team. The West Indies will prepare for Qualifier 1 of the T20 World Cup to qualify for the Super 12 stage of the competition.
