New Delhi - India's sports minister and the country's lone Olympic champion on Monday hit out at cricketers for refusing to divulge their daily location under an anti-doping code.
"All sportspersons should adhere to it and happily follow it," sports minister Manohar Singh Gill told reporters a day after the nation's top cricketers declined to comply with the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) code.
"The world is concerned about doping and we should support Wada. India has accepted regulatory testing and we adhere to it.
"It should be made clear to sportspersons that testing does not interfere in anyone's personal life."
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Sunday gave its blessing to players who did not accept the whereabouts clause of the WADA code, saying it infringed their privacy.
The clause requires players to detail their whereabouts for an hour between 6am and 11pm every day for the next three months to allow random out-of-competition testing.
Olympic shooting gold medallist Abhinav Bindra urged the cricketers to accept the code, saying the clause was "no big deal".
"They should just accept it and get on with life," said Bindra, who won India's first individual Olympic gold at Beijing in 2008.
"I think it is all due to a lack of understanding. But if cricket wants to become a global sport and fight the menace of drugs, they must agree to the Wada code.
"I have been part of the code for a few years and it is no big deal."
India's top players are the only ones in world cricket, a non-Olympic discipline, who had not signed the Wada documents by the August 1 deadline set by the International Cricket Council.
According to Wada rules, anybody missing three doping tests over 18 months faces a ban of up to two years.
"We have no problem with the testing but we have a problem with the system of testing players," BCCI president Shashank Manohar told reporters on Sunday.
"We have decided to write to the ICC about the concerns raised by the players. The BCCI agrees with the players that the system of testing is unreasonable."
Nine Indian male and two female players were registered for dope testing by the ICC, both during tournaments or random out-of-competition.
The male players in the list are world batting record holder Sachin Tendulkar, captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Gautam Gambhir, Irfan Pathan and Munaf Patel.
Jhulan Goswami and Mithali Raj are the two women players in the list.
The ICC, responding to India's stand, said the matter will be discussed by the governing body's Executive Board to "find a way forward".- AFP