South Africa’s Test fast bowler Kagiso Rabada has, up to this point in his career, played the exact same number of Test matches as did Dennis Lillee. The former has bowled roughly a third fewer balls than Lillee did in his entire Test career. Rabada has taken 28 fewer Test wickets, but at a better average that’s different enough to be significant.
In short, Rabada is a weapon with ball in hand and his presence in the South African team for the World Test Championships at Lord’s in four weeks’ time is significant.
The South African Institute for Drug-Free Sport – the country’s national anti-doping agency – this week announced that Rabada had returned a positive doping test but was nonetheless eligible to return to cricket after a one-month ban.
SAIDS’s announcement constituted the first announcement that Rabada had ever been banned in the first place, let alone that he’d already completed his short sanction.
The entirety of the ban instead was served under the cloak of “personal reasons”: code these days for, “Don’t dare ask because I’ve a right to privacy”. But one month? Aren’t athletes guilty of doping offences meant to cop years?
It’s easy to understand why people would be annoyed at a system under which the testing, investigation and punishment is conducted in secret until it is all over. But, in fact, there’s nothing to see here.
Credit: Simon Letch
To say that the whole episode stinks would be to come from a place of not comprehending the complexity of the system. Over decades, the world has been schooled to understand that all doping is equal in terms of misconduct; and that all instances of doping should be examined through an unfailingly unforgiving lens.
The reality, though, is this: anti-doping rules are complex and nuanced. The World Anti-Doping Code and its eight international standards span a combined 642 pages. Yes, I counted.
Since the first iteration of the WADA code came into force over 20 years ago, the jurisprudence on how those rules and standards are to be applied has filled umpteen authoritative legal texts.
Under the current WADA code and the anti-doping policies adopted almost uniformly worldwide – the National Football League in the US being a notable outlier – there are 11 different types of doping offence. Only one requires evidence of a urine or blood test showing the presence of a prohibited substance.
Moreover, doping sanctions aren’t uniform, and nor should they be. Once upon a time, they were, and there existed an inherent unfairness for athletes in fixed penalties. Not all doping transgressions are equal. It’s the same as the criminal charge of manslaughter, potentially involving anything from a 90-year-old assisting an old and terminally-ill partner to die with dignity, right through to a malicious, evil act that borders on murder. The crimes are not the same.
In terms of Rabada, what’s been disclosed publicly is that he’s accepted a sanction after testing positive for the presence of a “substance of abuse”, and that he’s free to play in the Indian Premier League and elsewhere – he played in the IPL just this week – after having served a one-month ban.
At that point, you might think Rabada must have nude photos of whoever sanctioned him, because all dopers should get years to life and be shamed publicly, right?
It’s the same logic but in reverse – because, of course, he’s Australian – that underpins the argument that Max Purcell was penalised with undue harshness by the International Tennis Integrity Agency ruling that he’s ineligible for a period of 18 months after receiving an intravenous infusion of five times the allowed volume of non-banned substances.
South African speedster Kagiso Rabada.Credit: Getty Images
And it’s the same logic deployed to argue Purcell must have been whacked too hard, because Jannik Sinner copped one-sixth of that time on the sidelines after testing positive to a prohibited substance, present in a treatment used by his masseuse to medicate his self-inflicted scalpel wound on his own hand.
Whataboutism can be used to make or break any argument. The better analysis is to consider the facts as they’re known, against the rules.
So, what’s known? First, Rabada’s sample glowed red for the presence of a “substance of abuse”, which is a substance identified under WADA rules as being frequently used and abused in society outside of the context of sport.
There are only four such substances: cocaine, heroin, MDMA, and THC, the active element of cannabis. On the reasonable assumption heroin is not in play, we’re left with weed, ecstasy and Bondi Marching Powder. None of those substances are banned for athletes out of competition.
Rules to distinguish instances of athletes testing positive to substances of abuse were introduced by WADA in 2021. That system isn’t a free hit for the athlete. In accordance with article 10.2.4.1 of the WADA Code, the athlete must establish their use of the substance occurred outside of competition, and that it was unrelated to sport performance.
If the athlete proves those two matters, on balance and with evidence such as pharmacological reports regarding the half-life of the substance in the athlete’s system, and written statements from themselves and those who may have used the substances with the athlete, a sanction that may otherwise have been two or even four years is reduced to a fixed three months.
If the athlete also submits to a treatment programme – in this case one approved by the South African Institute for Drug Free Sport – that three months becomes one month.
Further, because results management takes time, as soon as the athlete is notified of an adverse analytical finding for the substance of abuse in their system – and thus before any doping charge is laid – the athlete can elect to cop a provisional suspension on the basis that the one-month period might have already expired by the time they complete their treatment program, with a one-month sanction then imposed.
Finally, while all this is taking place, the convoluted provisions of article 14 of the WADA Code restrain SAIDS, Cricket South Africa, Rabada’s Gujarat Titans IPL franchise and basically anyone apart from the athlete himself from making any public statement about the matter or any aspect of the matter.
Is there anything which “stinks”, or which is even slightly unorthodox about how Rabada’s case has been managed? No, not really.
If Rabada took cocaine or any other substance of abuse in South Africa in January, between games, should that mean that he’s banned for two years or more? No.
Should anyone rightly get apoplectic about the fact that South Africa’s premier fast bowler has had a month-long holiday without anyone having the opportunity to throw stones during the currency of his ban? No.
What gets lost in all this is that even athletes who break the rules have rights. Doping rules are just rules; not all contraventions contain an element of deviousness and an intention to cheat the system.
