Prithvi Shaw fails dope test, banned for eight months
New Delhi, Jul 30: Talented India opener Prithvi Shaw was on Tuesday banned from all forms of cricket for a period of eight months after failing a dope test, the BCCI said.
A BCCI release said Shaw had "inadvertently ingested a prohibited substance, which can be commonly found in cough syrups".
Shaw's suspension is retrospective in nature, starting from March 16 and ending on November 15.
Apart from Shaw, two other cricketers Akshay Dullarwar and Divya Gajraj were also suspended for the same offence.
Shaw had provided a urine sample as part of the BCCI's anti-doping testing programme during the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy on February 22, 2019 in Indore. His sample was subsequently tested and found to contain terbutaline.
"Terbutaline, a specified substance, is prohibited both In and Out of Competition in the WADA Prohibited List of Substances," the BCCI release stated.
"Prithvi Shaw registered with Mumbai Cricket Association, has been suspended for doping violation," the BCCI said.
Terbutaline is generally used to treat problems related to breathing and can be consumed if the athlete in question avails a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) certificate in advance, which Shaw didn't avail.
The 19-year-old, who has played two Test matches for India scoring 237 runs with a hundred and a half-century, had earlier pulled out of India A's one day and Test series against West Indies A reportedly due to a hip injury.
The 19-year-old junior World Cup winning skipper had made a mark last year, hitting a hundred on Test debut against the West Indies, but was sent back from the tour of Australia after twisting his ankle during a practice game.
Shaw is currently at the National Cricket Academy undergoing rehabilitation for a reported hip injury, but the BCCI statement is an indicator that he was pulled out of Mumbai Premier League after testing positive.
The BCCI said that Shaw was charged with violating BCCI's Anti-Doping Rules (ADR) article 2.1.
"On 16th July 2019, Shaw was charged with the commission of an Anti-Doping Rule Violation (ADRV) under the BCCI Anti-Doping Rules (ADR) Article 2.1 and provisionally suspended pending determination of the charge.
"Shaw responded to the charge by admitting the ADRV but asserting that it was inadvertent, being caused by his ingestion of the over the counter cough syrup he had taken for his cough," the release stated.
Shaw explained that he had taken terbutaline inadvertently to treat a respiratory tract infection and not as a performance-enhancing drug.
"Having considered all of the evidence and taken expert external advice, the BCCI has accepted Shaw's explanation of the cause of his ADRV, and on that basis has agreed that a period of ineligibility of eight months should apply, together with disqualification of certain results," the BCCI ruled.
The BCCI then explained why the suspension was back-dated.
"Under BCCI ADR Article 10.10.3, Shaw is entitled to full credit against that period of ineligibility for the provisional suspension that he has been serving since 16th July 2019.
"In addition, because Shaw promptly admitted his ADRV upon being confronted with it by the BCCI, there is discretion under BCCI ADR Article 10.10.2 to back-date the start of the period of Ineligibility to the date of sample collection (22nd February 2019). However, the BCCI ADR Article 10.10.2 also requires Shaw to actually serve one half of the period of ineligibility," BCCI said.
"Therefore, further to BCCI ADR Article 10.10.2, the eight-month period of Ineligibility will be deemed to have started to run on 16th March 2019, so that it will end at midnight on 15th November 2019."
However, the BCCI's rules would allow Shaw to start training from September 15.
Along with Shaw, Vidarbha U-23 player Dullarwar has also been suspended for eight months after he tested positive for Desacetyl Deflazacort, a metabolite of Deflazacort. He was playing a BCCI U-23 one day game.
Rajasthan's U-19 cricketer Gajraj has been suspended for six months after he was found to have taken acetazolamide, a diuretic and masking agent, during a Cooch Behar Trophy game.
— Prithvi Shaw (@PrithviShaw) July 30, 2019
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Iran suggests it's open to US talks, White House official says, Trump is 'eventually' willing
Washington (AP): A senior White House official said Sunday that Iran's “new potential leadership” has suggested it is open to talks with the United States after American and Israeli forces launched a major attack against Tehran, killing the country's supreme leader and other high-ranking officials.
The White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration deliberations, said President Donald Trump says he is “eventually” willing to talk, but for now the military operation “continues unabated.” The official did not say who the potential new Iranian leaders are or how they made their alleged willingness to talk known.
Trump told The Atlantic, in an interview Sunday, that he planned to speak with Iran's new leadership.
“They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them,” he said, declining comment on the timing.
The potential future diplomatic opening comes as new details are emerging about the detailed planning that went into the US-Israeli strikes and some of the targets that were hit in Iran.
US Central Command said that B-2 stealth bombers struck Iran's ballistic missile facilities with 2,000-pound bombs. That mirrors the approach that the military took in June, when Trump agreed to deploy B-2 bombers to attack three key Iranian nuclear sites.
Trump claimed in his State of the Union speech last week that Iran had been building ballistic missiles that could reach the US homeland — a justification he repeated again Saturday as he announced that the bombardment of Iran was underway.
Iran has not acknowledged that it is building or seeking to build intercontinental ballistic missiles. The US Defence Intelligence Agency, however, said in an unclassified report last year that Iran could develop a militarily viable intercontinental ballistic missile by 2035 “should Tehran decide to pursue the capability.”
Before the attacks, the CIA had for months tracked the movements of senior Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to a person familiar with the operation.
The intelligence was shared with Israeli officials, and the timing of the strikes was adjusted in part because of that information about the Iranian leaders' location, according to the person, who was not authorised to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The intelligence sharing between US and Israel reflects the preparation that went into the strikes, which continued for a second day Sunday after Khamenei's killing threw the future of the Islamic Republic into uncertainty and raised the risk of escalating regional conflict.
The New York Times earlier reported about the CIA's efforts before the Israeli-US strikes.
Sen. Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, declined to discuss details Sunday when asked on CBS' “Face the Nation” about intelligence sharing with Israel. But he said tracking the movements of the supreme leader and the heads of other adversarial nations “is obviously one of the highest priorities of our intelligence community.”
“Clearly, this operation is driven by intelligence collected by Israel and the United States that has once again proven that our nations have capabilities that no other nation on Earth has,” said Cotton, R-Ark.
The US regularly shares intelligence with allies including Israel. Those partnerships, and the accuracy of the intelligence they yield, is often critical not only to the success of a military operation but also to the public's support for it.
Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the senior Democrat on the committee, told The Associated Press that historically, “our working relationship with the Mossad and Israel is really strong.” Mossad is the Israeli spy agency.
Warner said he has serious concerns about the justification for the strikes, Trump's long-term plans for the conflict and the risks that US service members will face. The military announced Sunday that three American troops had been killed and five were seriously wounded in the Iran operation.
“No tears will be shed over their leadership being eliminated but always the question is: OK, what next?” Warner said.
