Inmates, prisons, and all that jazz

Mohammad Asif, the bowler I thought was best fit to replace the void left by Glenn McGrath, has been in all sorts of trouble - steroid-related trouble, that is. A few days ago his career hit another road bump when he was "banned" by the IPL from “participating in the sport of cricket for a period of one year after finding the player guilty of a doping violation.”

What hubris! How can the IPL ban him from anything except from playing in the IPL. The IPL is NOT the International Cricket Council? To top it, the ICC has taken a head-in-the-sand approach to this.

The ICC further says, in a release, “the ICC has yet to consider the written reasons for the decision in the matter and will make no further comment at this stage other than to confirm its expectation that all Member Boards will adopt the ban and as such the player will not be available for official cricket until the ban has been completed.

The question is, has the IPL got the authority to ban a player from the sport for any length of time?

The ICC anti-doping code, relevant to the year 2008, when the Asif doping offence occurred, does not extend to anything other than ICC events. Even if one were to take into account the clause relating to “mutual enforcement and assistance”, the ICC would be duty bound to enforce only a member unit’s regulations and not that of a tournament.”

More on this in the article here. Even as Season 2 of the IPL approaches, my distaste for the organization deepens.