Bipin Dani
Players in the forthcoming Test series between Sri Lanka and England may not be required to give blood samples for their doping tests, it is learnt here.
Generally, while carrying out the doping tests by the ICC officials for the randomly selected players , they give blood and urine samples.
However, the practice has not been used for the time being, one of the sources in Sri Lanka, said.
“During the current Covid pandemic scenario, the ICC officials don’t ask to collect the blood samples.
This is because it is very difficult to send the blood samples in the overseas laboratory within 3 mandatory days”, one of the sources, speaking exclusively over the telephone from Colombo, said.
“In Sri Lanka, there is no ICC accredited laboratory and therefore we send the same in any of the five approved labs in Asia.
Reasonable delay in sending the urine sample for testing is not an issue”, the source explained.
Vaccination postponed In the meantime, the health ministry has postponed giving the first dose of vaccine to the national players.
The players were supposed to get the same on Sunday. “We found most of the players under 30 years of age and therefore the decision is taken to give them after the two Tests against Bangladesh”, one of the medical persons aware about the development, said exclusively.
