'Whereabouts' rule a necessary evil
Cricket may be relatively drug free, compared to baseball, but the fact that the ICC has been conscious of snuffing out the illegal elements in the game is laudatory
Kanishkaa Balachandran
25-Feb-2013
Cricket may be relatively drug free, compared to baseball, but the fact that the ICC has been conscious of snuffing out the illegal elements in the game is laudatory. The 'whereabouts' rule may seem draconian, but it's something the players will have to accept and live with in professional sport today, writes Michael Atherton in the Times.
And for cricketers who want their achievements to be recognised rather than mired in suspicion, they should think about someone such as Mark McGwire, the former Major League home run record-holder who has yet to be inducted into the Hall of Fame because of doubts about his drug taking. By refusing to answer questions about steroid abuse in front of a congressional hearing, McGwire cast doubt on his record and that of everyone else of that era.
Kanishkaa Balachandran is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo