Anshula Rao became the first female cricketer to receive a ban on doping
First, a female cricketer was disqualified for four years by the commission of the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) for failing a doping test.
Anshula Rao, an all-rounder who played for Madhya Pradesh in several tournaments, was punished by the authority’s Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel (ADDP), which said in its recent decision that she consumed the banned drug “knowingly and intentionally” to enhance performance.
Rao is a registered player with BCCI as part of its affiliated unit MPCA and had last participated in BCCI’s women’s under23 T20 tournament 2019-20. Rao had tested positive on March 14 last year at Baroda for a banned anabolic steroid ’19-Norandrosterone’ and failed to show that the prohibited substance entered her body without her knowledge. Two samples were then sent to an accredited laboratory in Belgium which found traces of the prohibited substance in Rao’s sample. In her defence before the panel Rao said there was a time lapse of almost four months between the dope test and the charge slapped by Nada. She also maintained that grave prejudice was caused to her as she was asked to bear “exorbitant and unreasonable costs of Euro 2400 for the B Sample analysis.
The ADDP, chaired by advocate Gaurang Kanth and members Dr. Rana Chengappa and sportsman Akhil Kumar, underlined that it is the personal duty of each athlete to ensure that no prohibited substance enters his/her body.
Though it criticised NADA for not providing financial help to Rao to conduct her B Sample analysis, the panel said she “failed to adduce any evidence to explain how the prohibited substance entered into her body.
“While awarding a four year ban the panel concluded that the presence of the prohibited substance in the urine sample of the athlete is “established beyond doubt” and noted that “in the present case the athlete failed to explain how the prohibited substance entered in her body and hence she failed to take the reasonable care as expected from an athlete.”
