Andre Russell, the highly coveted West Indies all-rounder, is set to make his debut for Nottinghamshire in the NatWest T20 Blast on Friday night, more than three months after Jamaica’s anti-doping body announced he had missed three drugs tests in 12 months.
While the club, who take on Derbyshire at Trent Bridge, say they are comfortable with the situation, Russell’s ability to continue playing cricket around the world while awaiting a disciplinary hearing – and the possibility of a two-year ban – raises questions over the sport’s response to such cases.
Under World Anti-Doping Agency regulations, to which the International Cricket Council is a signatory, cricketers must tell their local anti-doping authority where they will be for one hour every day, with three missed tests in the space of 12 months constituting a positive test.
However, provisional suspensions are mandatory only when athletes have tested positive for a non-specified substance. In all other cases, such as a whereabouts violation that Russell is alleged to have committed, suspensions remain at the discretion of the local authority.
Were an English cricketer to miss three drugs tests in a 12-month period, he or she would be provisionally suspended by UK Anti-Doping, the body that oversees drug testing for the England and Wales Cricket Board. However, the Jamaican Anti-Doping Commission (Jadco), who announced Russell’s three missed tests on 2 March, opted against this course of action and, when contacted by the Guardian, said it was still waiting to be given a date for his hearing after referring the case to an independent panel.
While this decision, and the subsequent delay, has left the issue hanging over Russell, it has not affected his stock as one of the most talented Twenty20 specialists in world cricket. The 28-year-old was a key component of the West Indies side that won the World Twenty20 in India in March before he played a full campaign in the Indian Premier League.
After seven weeks at the IPL, where he holds a $100,000 contract with Kolkata Knightriders, Russell will now begin a 20-day spell at Nottinghamshire before he returns home to play in the Caribbean Premier League for Jamaica Tallawahs, who are coached by the former England wicketkeeper Paul Nixon.
Notts are understood to have contacted the ECB to check the deal could go ahead, with the governing body confirming it was unable to prevent the county proceeding. The club privately believe that the issue revolves around errors in updating the anti-doping system that is used to log athletes’ whereabouts, given a jet-set career in which Russell played Twenty20 in seven different countries over the past year, rather than any attempt to avoid the testers.
The ICC has told the Guardian the matter remains one for the West Indies Cricket Board and Jadco, but an imminent conclusion looks unlikely if the latter’s most recent case in cricket is anything to by. Odean Brown, a first-class cricketer in Jamaica, was cited for missing three tests in August 2015 but had to wait until May this year before his 15-month suspension from the sport was confirmed.
Brown is reported to have believed himself provisionally suspended when the initial charge was announced and subsequently withdrew from playing cricket for his island from that date.
His punishment was backdated to November 2015, meaning he can return in February next year.
Were Russell to be found guilty of violating the anti-doping code, any suspension would begin from the date of the hearing. While a two-year ban is possible, it could be subject to a reduction down to a minimum of one year depending on the degree of fault and no prior record of activity deemed suspicious.
