‘I’m not a drugs cheat, it’s proven’: Chris Wright raring to return after ban

Leicestershire seamer feared career was over after ban that has prompted criticism of anti-doping regulations

After six months of sweat, toil and motorway service stations, October is a time of calm in the life of a county cricketer. “Normally that one month a year where you can pretty much do nothing,” says Chris Wright, the 39-year-old seamer.

Wright is one of those canny bowlers who puts it on a spot game after game, season after season, turning consistency into a fine domestic career. It began at Middlesex, took in a County Championship title at Warwickshire in 2012, and recent years have been well spent at Leicestershire. Indeed, Wright helmed the attack that won the One-Day Cup in 2023.

At the start of last October, the county was “delighted to announce” his new two-year contract after he had U-turned on a move to Sussex for family reasons. The following season would probably take him to 600 first-class wickets, the next to professional cricket at the age of 40. All appeared well, until a surprise call in mid-October.

“I was just in my house, chilling out, doing a few jobs, had music on my Bluetooth,” Wright says. “And it cut off because the phone was ringing. So I picked it up and got a call from the guy at the ECB [England and Wales Cricket Board] saying: ‘I’ve sent you an email, you’ve failed a drugs test.’ His words were: ‘Don’t panic, just give the PCA [Professional Cricketers’ Association] a call.’ Obviously, it isn’t a situation where you don’t panic. It’s a ludicrous thing to say.”

Wright was provisionally suspendedbut it was not until the start of Julythat his situation was spelled out publicly. A trace amount of the banned substance ostarine had been found in his system. The National Anti-Doping Panel (NADP), in its decision in May, accepted he had taken it unintentionally through a contaminated supplement, but Wright was still given a nine-month suspension backdated to last October. The One-Day Cup, beginning this week, will mark his competitive return to the game.

He has missed it desperately. “Cricket is one of those sports where quite often people playing it think it’s cool to be grumpy about it,” says Wright. “I’m not one of those people,I love the game.” The suspension threatened that love. It forced Wright to give up a winter coaching opportunity with Central Sparks, the regional women’s team, before he set about trying to prove his innocence.

A number of supplements Wright had been using were sent for testing in February, and it was discovered that a bilberry supplement was responsible for the positive test. As stated in the NADP’s decision, the label on the supplement did “not list ostarine, nor any other prohibited substance as an ingredient”. In other words: “I’m not a drugs cheat, it’s proven,” says Wright.

But the process continued until May, with a hearing in front of the Cricket Regulator, which argued Wright was at fault in taking ostarine, even if unintentionally. “In the hearing the regulator, at the last minute, tried to argue that I should get banned for 20 to 24 months,” says Wright. The NADP’s decision cited how, among other reasons, Wright did not research the supplement on the Informed Sport website – where athletes can see if products have been batch tested– nor had he consulted his team doctor over whether it was safe to take.

A lengthier suspension would have been terminal for Wright’s career. “At my age to stop playing cricket for, say, 12 months, I don’t think I could come back from that physically. You need to keep moving and keep the bones greased. If the regulator had their way and they got an obscene 20 to 24 months then, absolutely, I’d have hung the boots up.”

The NADP found Wright’s fault“not significant” but still handed out a nine-month suspension. “Harsh” is Wright’s unequivocal conclusion. “I’ve not harmed anyone, I’ve not tried to cheat, the level of the substance isn’t enough to do anything. I got told this: the amount of ostarine in my system that triggered this [positive] test was equivalent to a grain of sand in an Olympic swimming pool.”

Wright isn’t alone in finding the punishment severe. The PCA, along with the World Cricketers’ Association (WCA) and World Players Association (WPA), is using Wright’s case to urge the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) to change its rules and protect athletes who inadvertently take contaminated substances.

“What’s happened with anti-doping rules is the science has evolved much quicker than the regulations,” says Matthew Graham, head of the WPA.“The science is now capable of picking up readings of trace elements as low as a picogram, which is a trillionth of a gram. When the readings are so sensitive it is incredibly unlikely that an athlete has obtained or sought to obtain any performance-enhancing benefit from the substance.”

Wright isn’t a one-off. Graham points to the example of Lizzy Banks, the former cyclist who was left feeling suicidal after a positive doping test last year in another case of contamination. Banks was ruled by UK Anti-Doping (Ukad) this year of being at “no fault or negligence”though Wada has since appealed against the decision. “There’s a lot of these cases coming through,” says Graham.

The WPA is pushing for thresholds to be introduced for thefull range of known contaminants such as ostarine. “The second piece,” adds Graham, “is where these readings are being recorded at such a low level, the burden of proof should be shifted on to the anti-doping authority and, on top of that, there could be further follow-up testing just to confirm this was a bit of an aberration of a result.”

Wright, understandably, has had a difficult few months but is grateful for the support of his county and the PCA, which helped fund his legal representation and testing of supplements. And he’s keen to get back out there. “I love bowling, and I love my teammates. I want to play as long as I can.”

Wider contamination fears

For Ian Thomas, managing director of member services at the PCA, the fear is that Wright’s case of contamination could just be the beginning, with the prospect of similar stories to follow. “You’ve got players playing in the county game provided with supplements, players playing in the Hundred. And then players who play for England. They will all be provided that as part of their conditioning programmes.

“We just have to remind players to [take] damage limitation [measures]: make sure they’re batch tested, make sure they’re Informed Sport [certified]. But even then there’s always a potential risk. It’s sounding more and more a minefield where a player could potentially pick up a contamination.

“The heartbreak in this case is we did get a result for Chris that’s allowed him to get back in the game, but it could have very easily ended his career. If it had been a longer suspension the club were within their rights to terminate his contract. [Leicestershire] deserve some credit for standing by and supporting him. Some clubs might have been less supportive.”

Quote of the week

The great thing about Bash is if you see him get hit over his head, he starts smiling and he’s all right. I love the way in which that doesn’t affect him” – Ben Stokes on his wunderkind offie, Shoaib Bashir, who now has three five-wicket hauls after only five Test matches. He’s still waiting for one in the County Championship.

Win! Win! Win!

We’ve got five signed copies of Brian Lara’s new book to give away this week. To get your name in the hat, answer this simple question:

Under which captain did Lara average the most as a batter in Test cricket?

Send your entries by email here with the subject line ‘Brian Lara competition’. Lara: The England Chronicles, Brian Lara’s first fully co-authored book is available to buy now at thenightwatchman.net. Use coupon code SPINLARA to get £5 off both the signed and standard hardback editions.

Memory lane

December 2002 and scorers take up their positions as a match gets under way during the “Amacala’egusha” (half a sheep) village cricket tournament near Middledrift in South Africa. The event had been played since the 1920s between villages in the Eastern Cape province, but the original ovine prize had long since been replaced with a more conventional trophy.

Still want more?

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Raf Nicholson meets Davina Perrin, the 17-year-old aiming to light up the Hundred and act as a role model for girls from ethnic minorities.

Ali Martin sees encouragement in Shoaib Bashir’s match-winning performance in the second Test against West Indies.

Gary Naylor looks back on the final round of T20 Blast group games and assesses the quarter-finalists.

And restraint has been called for at Southwick and Shoreham CC, where players have been banned from hitting sixes after complaints from neighbours about property damage.

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