Indian cricket stars Cheteshwar Pujara, KL Rahul, Ravindra Jadeja, Smriti Mandhana and Deepti Sharma heaved a sigh of relief on Thursday (June 25) as they escaped National Anti-Doping Agency’s sanctions for failing to disclose their whereabouts details.

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Even though the country has been under COVID-19 lockdown, the rule to submit three months of whereabouts is mandatory. Three such failures to disclose leads to one Anti Doping Rule Violation (ADRV), which could lead up to two years of suspension upon hearing.

The aforementioned cricketers failed to do so and thus they were served notices by NADA earlier this month.

The BCCI, on its part, had cited “password glitch” as the reason for delay to submit their five players’ whereabouts.

As per a TOI report, NADA has let the cricketers off with a simple “warning” after accepting the BCCI contention that the board failed to provide the whereabouts due to the password glitch.

According to sources in NADA, the decision to let the cricketers off was arrived at in consultation with the (ICC), as well as the NADA’s own assessment of reasons provided by the board.

“They (cricketers, BCCI) had a genuine reason. We found their explanation cogent. The matter is closed. They will soon be formally notified,” NADA DG Navin Agarwal told TOI.

As for other athletes who have been served notices, Agarwal informed that some of them will be issued a notice of filing failure of ADRV as their reasons weren’t found to be genuine.

(With TOI inputs)