ICC panel meets on Wednesday over doping impasse

The ICC will hold a teleconference on Wednesday night of its working group on the contentious 'whereabouts' clause of the World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) code, which Indian players have refused to sign. The meeting will set the parameters for the group to work on a solution and fix a date and time for it to meet.

The group will be introduced to the issue at hand and there could possibly be a preliminary discussion on the way forward. The International Registered Testing Pool (IRTP) working group is chaired by Tim Kerr, chairman of ICC anti-doping panel, and also includes ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat, BCCI secretary N Srinivasan, ICC principal advisor IS Bindra and former India captain Anil Kumble, who sits on WADA's Athletes Committee.

The 11 Indian players in the ICC's testing pool have raised concerns about the clause, which requires them to inform the ICC, at the beginning of every quarter (three-month period), of a location and time they will be available for an hour each day for testing. The BCCI and the players were worried about security risks involved in providing 'whereabouts' information in advance and have also said that the clause is a violation of privacy statutes.

The BCCI and the Indian players have faced criticism for their decision to not abide by the WADA code, because cricketers from all other countries in the testing pool and India's top athletes have accepted the anti-doping regulations. One of the BCCI's suggestions for solving the problem was to introduce a new cricket-specific code.