Ravindra Jadeja dope tested most number of times from January to May; no test for Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma

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Ravindra Jadeja is the most tested cricketer by National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) from the period between January 2023 to May 2023. The star all-rounder has been tested thrice during the period. All of Jadeja’s three samples were of urine, and taken 'Out Of Competition’ (OOC) on February 19, March 26 and April 26.

India ODI and Test captain Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli haven't given any dope test during the period. In fact, former India captain Kohli wasn't tested even in 2021 and 2022. Rohit was tested thrice during the period - according to the data released by NADA for the period.

NADA had collected 54 and 60 samples respectively from the cricketers in 2021 and 2022 respectively. The samples are expected to see a record high this year as 55 samples have already been taken by the month of May. With India hosting the World Cup 2023 in October-November, the tests could see a significant rise.

India T20I captain Hardik Pandya underwent one urine test in April. Out-of-favour India pacer T Natarajan underwent two tests, one urine and one blood - both on April 27.

Notably, blood testing allows detection of additional substances that in some cases may not be able to be found in urine. It also helps in longitudinal data collection, also known as the athlete biological passport. Certain biomarkers are observed over the time to detect the use of performance-enhancing substances.

Suryakumar Yadav, KL Rahul, Ishan Kishan, Mohammed Siraj, Deepak Chahar, Mayank Agarwal, Rahul Tripathi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Wriddhiman Saha, Dinesh Karthik, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ambati Rayudu, Piyush Chawla and Manish Pandey are the other prominent Indian cricketers who underwent dope tests from January to May.

Overseas stars were also tested, mostly during the IPL 2023. David Wiese, David Miller, Cameron Green, Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, David Warner, Rashid Khan, David Willey, Trent Boult, Marcus Stoinis, Mark Wood, Adam Zampa, Sam Curran, Liam Livingstone and Jofra Archer are some player who gave the dope test. A few provided blood samples as well.

Further, captain Harmanpreet Kaur and her deputy Smriti Mandhana were the only India women's cricketers to be tested during the period. They were tested once each. Their urine samples were collected in Mumbai on January 12.