What drugs are used in Cricket: Facts & Figures

Cannabis and steroids are the most commonly used substances by cricket-players. Pakistan, India and Netherland have the most cases.

Cricket is the second most popular sport in the world with 2.5 billion players. This according to the website Topend Sport. It is beaten only by Soccer.

In this post we will present the doping problem in the sport.

We have registered less than 50 anti-doping rule violations in the sport of Cricket. Pakistan has the most banned athletes. Our database shows 25% of the cases involves Cricket-players from Pakistan.

Cricket-players from India is involved in 15% while players from Netherlands is involved in 12% of the total doping cases.

Cannabis

We also see that Cannabis is involved in 18% of the doping cases in Cricket. The steroids Clenbuterol, Nandrolone and Stanozolol is being used in 11% of the cases. When we look at the substance types of all the cases Anabolic Agents is being used in 10% of the cases followed by stimulants (9%) and Cannabinoids (8%).
Players from the Netherlands tops the stats for usage of Cannabis. They are involved in 60% of the cases in Cricket. Players from the UK and Pakistan is involved in 20% of the doping violations in the sport.

Clenbuterol

Two players from New Zealand has been banned for using Clenbuterol. Their bans are part of the investigation around the Clenbuterol NZ operation.

21% of the athletes has been given a two year suspension. 15% has been banned for eight months.

10 years (from 2013)

Year	Number of banned athletes
Total 48
2013	3
2014	3
2015	3
2016	2
2017	8
2018	3
2019	4
2020	1
2021	1
2022	5

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