As we move to shorter formats,the need to be vigilant is greater

There is one point though in favour of what the cricketers have been saying. Given that cricket,unlike athletics or cycling,is not a seasonal sport there is little time to retreat to an inaccessible place and pump yourself up. There is actually too little off-season training. Maybe one way out is to insist on random drug tests in bilateral tournaments as well,not merely those conducted by the ICC. And while we begin that process immediately we work out what is the best way to include randomness in testing. And if thereafter,the method suggested by WADA emerges the best,so be it. There are many simple hardworking people who would happily agree to being subjected to a few random tests a year in return for so much.

Maybe there is something else we could do in parallel. It might be a good idea to tell our younger cricketers stories of athletes dropping dead in their twenties; of cyclists and sprinters and others who grew grotesque appendages and who exist in the obituary columns and jails rather than in medals tallies. Fear has always been a greater deterrent than force.

Meanwhile Sachin Tendulkar,as clean a cricketer as any you will meet,has come public with the targets in his mind. I am intrigued because that is one thing he has never done in all these years. Yes,winning the World Cup is an ambition that everyone harbours and Tendulkar has made no secret of the fact that he yearns for it,but the fact that he has announced this target of fifteen thousand Test runs is unlike him. He needs another 2227 runs to get there and even if he can retain an average of 50,it means another 45 innings. Over a long career he has averaged 1.64 innings per Test so it would be pretty safe to work with 27 Tests as the number he needs to play. I see two things coming in the way. First,his body needs to hold for that long and he has to maintain the resolve to go through more sets of rehab,something that gets increasingly difficult. Second,more critically,the BCCI needs to schedule 27 Tests quickly enough. My suspicion is that we are looking at a minimum of three years; three injury free,good form years. It is a daunting target and one that I will be overjoyed to see surpassed.

An outstanding young sportsman I met this week has no such problems in the immediate future. Lewis Hamilton is only 24 but is blessed with good sense and humility,rare in one who has achieved so much so soon. It was a sponsor driven event we were at together and he sat like a schoolboy listening,and agreeing,to all that he had to do. “Let me get this right he said. Two and a half million new subscribers,the road to Abu Dhabi contest,sms 56565 and the campaign with… what’s it called… zoozoos?” And then he went on stage,remembered everything he had to,played cricket with awestruck fans and having discovered that a slow tennis ball had embarrassed him a bit opted to bowl and then came back to hit a few balls (just to show that he could!!). I can see why the likes of him and Adam Gilchrist and Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar are so popular with sponsors. Should young players entering the system be educated about that,I wonder?