NADA will conduct drug tests of 14 Indian players including Bumrah, Pant, and Suryakumar Yadav, taking a big step before the England series

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The series to be played between India and England is going to start from Kolkata. The first T20 match will be played on Wednesday, January 22. But just before this match, the anti-doping agency in the country, NADA, has taken a big decision. It has included many big cricketers of India in its Registered Testing Pool (RTP). This includes 14 players including Test team vice-captain Jaspreet Bumrah, T20 captain Suryakumar Yadav, star wicketkeeper batsman Rishabh Pant and ODI team vice-captain Shubman Gill. NADA will collect samples of these players during the entire series and test them.

Why did NADA take this step?

Before knowing why NADA took this step, let us know who all are included in its list. For the year 2025, apart from Suryakumar Yadav, Pant, Gill and Bumrah, NADA has also put Hardik Pandya, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Arshdeep Singh, Sanju Samson and Tilak Verma in RTP. Among the women players, the names of stormy opener Shefali Verma, all-rounder Deepti Sharma and fast bowler Renuka Singh Thakur are included.

There is no need for any player or fan to panic due to this move of NADA. Because it has included these star players in the list of investigation under its anti-doping program. Through them, the agency tries to spread awareness about doping among other athletes. Therefore, during the white ball series, it will collect samples of some players at different venues and test them.

has done this before

This is not the first time that NADA has taken this step. Even before this, it has been putting big players in the testing pool for its program. For 2019, it had selected KL Rahul, Ravindra Jadeja, Cheteshwar Pujara, Smriti Mandhana and Deepti Sharma. Let us tell you that in 2020, these four players failed to follow the rules of NADA, after which the agency warned them and let them go. BCCI had said that due to lockdown and password glitch, the players were not able to follow the rules.

Let us tell you that after being included in the NADA list, the athlete has to provide information about his residence, training, email address as well as phone number. So that the sample can be collected on time. If the players fail to do so during 12 months, then it is considered a violation of doping rules. And the agency has the right to take action.