Shrugging off drug charges, Indian team aims to retain focus for final

While the Indian cricket team trying to shrug off allegations of drug use by some of its members and retaining focus on the Coca Cola Cup tri-series final against West Indies on Saturday, physio Andrew Leipus has come up strongly in defence of his side.

Leipus termed the allegations "laughable" and said he felt extremely let down by the story.

A news magazine last week quoted former Indian cricketer and coach Anshuman Gaekwad alleging certain players took performance-enhancing drugs. Gaekwad had subsequently denied the comments attributed to him.

"Personally it puts me in a bad light. All the hard work that I have done to get the players fitter and better has been washed away with this allegation," Leipus said. He categorically stated he had "never injected a player except when it is for acupuncture" and denied ever giving a steroid to any Indian player.

On the charge that he had imported some "stuff" from Australia for the players, the physio retorted, "It is myoplex, a nutritional powder, and it is secured from South Africa and not Australia. Also, it is not a steroid.

"Steroids help people in the gym enormously. If you are in to heavy weight training, steroids will help you. But our guys, when in the gym, do not train so hard. Their training is not really intensive. Whoever has done the story has little or no knowledge of the difference between diet supplements and steroids", he said.

"Fingers have been pointed at us," said a senior cricketer on condition of anonymity. "But nobody cared to remember that quite a few Indian cricketers, like Javagal Srinath, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble, Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar, have played county cricket in recent past where drug regulations are in place and they have also been repeatedly tested."

The England and Wales Cricket Board and the Australian Cricket Board are the only two national cricket bodies where drug regulations are enforced and random tests are carried out on cricketers. However, these laws are applied at the first class level and not in the international arena.

Sunil Gavaskar, who heads the cricket committee of the International Cricket Council, says the issue does not fall under the jurisdiction of his unit.

"We handle only the technical matters of the game internationally, though I did broach this subject with the chief executive (Malcolm Gray) at the executive meeting of the body in Nairobi last October and work on it is underway," he said.

ICC's Anti-corruption unit chief Sir Paul Condon also mentioned the allegations of baggage and equipment on tours being used to facilitate movement of illicit drugs.

Zimbabwe batsman Andy Flower said it was time the respective cricket boards had a sound drug policy in place. "If everyone feels the game is clean, why not put in place a sound drug policy to avoid any rumours gaining ground".

Craig Smith, the long-serving physiotherapist of the South African team, termed the allegations in the magazine as outlandish and farfetched.

"A cricketer is not like a sprinter, whose success depends largely on power. There are so many variables in a game of cricket and a batsman relies on technique and timing and a bowler on technique and rhythm. Those are not things you can find in a bottle. A lot of the top players take nutritional supplements, such as carbohydrates and proteins, or Creatine, which is legal and advisable, but to say there is widespread use of steroids, beta-blockers or amphetamines is just an attempt at sensationalising the issue."

It is not the first time though that suggestions have been made on the usage of drugs by Indian cricketers. During the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur in 1998, some leading Indian bowlers were not included in the team because they were taking cortisone injections to ease body pains. Cortisone is a taboo as per the International Olympic Committee's medical commission.

ICC spokesman Mark Harrison said cricket bodies around the world will soon be forced to submit players to stern drug testing, most certainly by the 2003 World Cup. The ICC would have, by then, recognised which drugs are illegal and which are only energisers, he said.