Sports

Controversial supplement use and suppliers going scot-free

Published

6 years ago

2020/09/15

by Reemus Fernando

Reputed sprint coach and Olympian Sunil Gunawardena alleged that a segment of track and field coaches guiding the destinies of Sri Lanka’s top level athletes were ruining their careers by promoting controversial supplements. He said that country’s fastest sprinter in both the boys’ and girls’ categories are now being coached by an individual who imports and promotes supplements. Gunawardena who did not name the individual said that the controversial individual was not a qualified coach.

In an interview with Roshan Abeysinghe in ‘Straight Drive’ on Derana 24, the veteran coach said that authorities have turned a blind eye to unsafe supplements used in the field of sports.

“Currently the fastest boy and girl in Sri Lanka are coached by an individual who has no coaching credentials. He is importing supplements and promoting them among athletes. Tragedy is that he is promoting them even among school athletes,” alleged Gunawardena in the show telecast on Saturday.

The criticism of Gunawardena, who trained the likes of Damayanthi Dharsha to hog the limelight at Asian level, comes at a time when suppliers of controversial supplements have easy access to competition venues and even accompany them to international competitions.

“There is no method to categories harmful supplements and safe supplements. So are those who sell them. One such supplier toured with the South Asian Games team. You could see some of the athletes adoring this person instead of their coaches after they won medals in Nepal last year,” an official close to top athletes told The Island.

Supplements had been blamed for the last two positive drug tests conducted by the Sri Lanka Anti Doping Authority.

A young schools sprinter from Southern Province was found positive for stimulants (Oxandrolone and Epioxandrolone) when SLADA conducted tests at the National Sports Festival in 2018 resulting a provisional suspension. Her ‘B’ sample test also confirmed the positive analytical finding. Months later at the Disciplinary Inquiry the athlete’s lawyers successfully defended her. The Disciplinary Panel in its report said: “the Panel is satisfied that the athlete and her parents have successfully established that they bear no fault or negligence in consuming the Protein Supplement which caused the adverse analytical finding.”

Ironically the athlete’s parents had proved that they had purchased the supplement during an all island schools competition held at the country’s premier athletics venue the Sugathadasa Stadium.

There had been more than one occasion when outstanding performances of young athletes trained by up and coming coaches being attributed to use of supplements than to a properly laid out training plans.

Taking supplements is not prohibited as rightly argued by the lawyers of the young athlete mentioned above. But who can guarantee which supplements are clear of substances banned by the World Anti Doping Authority?

Addressing a group of coaches during an online seminar last month a professor from the Nutrition Society of Sri Lanka said that there was no system to categories protein supplements, mostly whey protein in Sri Lanka. Protein supplements can play a major role in an athlete’s recovery process but unavailability of pure supplements has prevented recognized nutritionists from recommending any.

“There are no pure protein supplements which we can recommend in Sri Lanka. Contents in a protein supplement may vary from consignment to consignment,” Terrance Madujith, a professor on Food Science from the University of Peradeniya told a symposium recently.

Though it is widely believed that there is supplement use in many sports, positive tests were rare. Does that mean the supplements available are clean?

With limited resources, the country’s anti-doping authorities are conducting only 250 to 300 tests per year. According to sources it costs SLADA nearly rupees 35,000.00 to 40,000.00 to conduct one test. There are dozens of national level competitions in track and field alone per year and there are nearly three dozen Olympic sports. Even if it dedicates a major potion of the tests to premier sports, SLADA will be able to test only less than dozen athletes a year in one sport.

With no check or control on supplement use and with limited resources for SLADA to conduct tests outstanding performances are likely to be looked at with suspicion. How long will the coaches and athletes who believe in natural strengths will bear this?

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Royal Challengers Bengaluru eliminate Mumbai Indians and go top after tense finish

Published

37 mins ago

2026/05/11

Priyan

Bhuvneshwar Kumar creamed a six over covers when RCB needed nine off three [Cricinfo]

A two-paced, up-and-down pitch in Raipur was the stage for one of the most enthralling contests of IPL 2026, and it ended in the most dramatic of last-ball finishes, with Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) breaking a two-match losing streak to go to the top of the table. In doing so they ended the playoffs hopes of not just Mumbai Indians (MI), their opponents on the night, but also Lucknow Super Giants (LSG).

In the end, the finish defied explanation. With RCB needing two to win off the last ball, Rasikh Salam clipped a near-yorker from Raj Bawa back towards the bowler. Bawa fumbled, the ball dribbled into the mid-on region, and when Ryan Rickelton collected the throw and broke the wicket at the keeper’s end, Rasikh had just made his ground, diving to complete the second run.

Perhaps the only explanation was that two players did not deserve to be on the losing side. One was Bhuvneshwar Kumar. He took three wickets in a bewitching new-ball spell, then returned to take out MI’s top scorer at a crucial moment in the death overs, and then, batting at No. 10 with nine runs required from three balls, hit Bawa for a gloriously timed six over the leaping sweeper cover fielder. It was Bhuvneshwar’s first six in the IPL since 2016.

The other was Krunal Pandya. Promoted to No. 5 with RCB 39 for 3 in the sixth over, Krunal took charge of the chase, finding ways to hit boundaries even as everyone around him struggled to middle the ball, and hitting sixes while fighting cramps, and eventually scored 73 off 46 balls.

From the start it was evident that hard lengths would be extremely difficult to negotiate on this pitch. From these lengths, the ball stuck and jumped on some occasions, bringing the leading edge into play, and at other times it skidded and kept low.

After RCB opted to bowl in their first match at their second home for the season, Bhuvneshwar struck in the first over with a hard-length ball. It hit high on Rickelton’s bat as he looked to punch over mid-off, and all he managed to do was hit it to the fielder.

But there was more to Bhuvneshwar’s magic on the night than merely his use of the pitch. His second wicket came off one of the great balls of his IPL career: a knuckle-ball outswinger that made Rohit Sharma reach for the drive, which he edged to the keeper. Next ball, he went back to a traditional good length and closer to the stumps, and found late, late swing to get Suryakumar Yadav nicking to slip for a golden duck.

MI were 28 for 3 in three overs.

With the pitch behaving as it did, Naman Dhir and Tilak Varma began an old-school rebuild, knowing that even 180 would be an excellent total. And they set up perfectly for that final push, putting on 82 off 57 balls.

But RCB dismissed both just when they were looking dangerous. Dhir had just struck Rasikh for a pair of pleasing back-foot fours through the off side when a shooter did him in. Then, in the 18th over, Bhuvneshwar dismissed Tilak, who played on while looking for the scoop over short fine leg. It took away one of MI’s most dangerous death-overs hitters with two overs remaining; they only scored 11 runs off those two overs, as Josh Hazlewood and Rasikh kept extracting misbehaviour from hard lengths.

Virat Kohli had been out for a duck in RCB’s previous game, the victim of a peach from Prince Yadav. On Sunday he was out for a golden duck; this time he looked to impose himself on a wide outswinger from Deepak Chahar, but ended up mishitting it to mid-off.

Chahar was erratic – he conceded 14 in his first over, with Jacob Bethell putting him away for back-to-back fours off his first two balls – but continued to bowl good balls. In his second over, he sent down a jaffa that squared up Devdutt Padikkal and nicked him off, straightening after angling into the left-hander from round the wicket.

Then, in the final over of the powerplay, RCB lost their third wicket; this time, Corbin Bosch made full use of a pitch made for his strengths. He banged it in short, got the ball to hurry and cramp Rajat Patidar on the pull, and the top-edged ballooned to the keeper.

The fourth-wicket partnership of 55 was a study in contrasts. Bethell did not hit another boundary after the two he’d hit off Chahar at the start of his innings, and struggled to pierce the field while limping to a run-a-ball 27. At the other end, Krunal exuded a sense of certainty right from the time he pulled Bosch for six off just the third ball he faced.

His handling of spin was particularly crucial to how the chase unfolded. He used his reach to sweep and slog whenever the chance presented itself, and this may have made Suryakumar Yadav – standing in in the continued absence of Hardik Pandya with a back issue – hesitate to use Raghu Sharma, the legspinner MI had brought on as their Impact Player. Instead, he turned to Bawa’s military medium; his first over went for just eight runs, but Krunal and Jitesh Sharma took his second over, the 14th of RCB’s innings, for 16 runs.

That left RCB needing 57 off 36 balls.

Jitesh, coming into this game with an average of 8.00 for the season, played an important cameo, 18 off 12 including an eye-catching back-foot punch off Jasprit Bumrah in the 15th over, and a hooked six off Bosch in the 16th.

Just as the contest seemed to be tilting RCB’s way, though, Bosch hit back with two wickets in two balls. Jitesh sliced him into deep point’s hands, and Tim David fell for a first-baller, toe-ending an attempted pull to the keeper, undone by a ball that stopped on him. MI gained more control as Chahar conceded just six off the 17th over, using his slower bouncer expertly.

With 30 to get off the last three, and with Bumrah to bowl one of those three, the 18th over became crucial. And AM Ghazanfar nearly became a hero, inducing a mishit from Krunal only for Naman Dhir and Tilak Varma – converging from deep midwicket and long-on respectively – to mess up a possible relay catch via miscommunication.

Krunal was actively cramping at this stage, but he somehow found the reserves within him to hit two sixes off the next three balls, falling to the floor in agony after completing his shots. A third six off the final ball of the over would have left RCB needing 12 off 12, but this time Tilak judged and executed the running, juggling catch perfectly at long-on.

This meant Bumrah bowled the 19th to two new batters. And neither Romario Shepherd nor Rasikh had much of an answer to his mix of hard lengths and yorkers; only three came off the over, of which one was a leg bye.

It was the perfect assist. All that remained was for the final-over bowler to finish it off. But the three seamers had bowled out, and Suryakumar wasn’t going to use a spinner. So it was Bawa who stepped up, and he did a decent job under the circumstances; he overstepped once, and there were three wides, but these were the result of sticking to a wide-line plan. And Shepherd struggled against his round-the-wicket angle, losing shape while trying to muscle the ball, and he eventually fell off the third legal ball of the over, leaving Nos. 9 and 10 to score 10 off three balls.

On most days, you would back the bowling team to close it out. On this day, Bhuvneshwar was an irresistible force.

Brief scores:
Royal Challengers Bengaluru 167 for 8 in 20 overs (Jacob Bethell 27, Devudutt Padikkal 12, Krunal Pandya 73, Jitesh Sharma 18; Deepak Chahar 2-33, Corbin Bosch 4-26, A M Gazhanfar 1-33, Raj Bawa 1-39) beat Mumbai Indians 166 for 7 in 20 overs (Rohit Sharma 22, Naman Dhir 47, Tilak Verma 57, Will Jacks 10, Raj Bawa 16; Bhuvneshwar Kumar 4-23, Josh Hazelwood 1-33, Rasik Salam 1-42, Romario Shepherd 1-18) by two wickets

[Cricinfo]

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Overton, Urvil power Chennai Super Kings to fifth spot with third straight win

Published

1 hour ago

2026/05/11

Priyan

Urvil Patel made an awe-inspiring start to his innings ]Cricinfo]

Urvil Patel played the kind of innings that erased a bit of history and created a bit of history. In 2025, team after team came to Chepauk and breached it and the crowd got used to leaving early. On Sunday evening, 32,825 people – some of whom might have seen the morning show where one of Tamil Nadu’s most popular actors took charge as the chief minister – were given double delight as Chennai Super Kings (CSK) chased down their first 200-plus target since 2018 and one of their future stars announced himself with the IPL’s joint fastest half century.

Urvil got there in 13 balls. When he walked into the middle, CSK’s chances of winning were 38.13%. When he walked out, to a standing ovation from the crowd and his coaching staff, CSK’s chances of winning were 93.02%. He single-handedly changed the game and powered CSK to fifth spot.

Mitchell Marsh had taken first strike in eight out of 11 Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) matches. Here he gave it up so that Josh Inglis could do his thing. One of the best spin hitters in the world threw the opposition’s bowling plans off when he targeted Akeal Hosein, hitting him for three successive boundaries in the first over. CSK turned to pace, which suited Marsh better and which Inglis harnessed to play some of the coolest ramps ever seen and he went for them over and over.

According to ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball data, nobody has tried more ramps (four) inside the powerplay. Even when he missed one, he created scoring opportunities. Because Anshul Kamboj, having seen what he wanted to do, went fuller instead of camping on a good length area and got smacked through the covers. Inglis’ ease in accessing the ‘V’ behind the wicket opened up easier scoring shots in front of it. He was 77 off 25 after six overs. Only Suresh Raina (87 vs PBKS in 2014), Travis Head (84 vs DC in 2024) and Jake Fraser-McGurk (78 vs MI in 2024) have scored more inside the field restrictions.

But with the field spreading, CSK unleashed the season’s joint-second-highest wicket-takers (12 each) in the middle overs on LSG. Noor Ahmad aced his match-up with Nicholas Pooran (two runs off nine balls for three dismissals). In his first three games this season, he had 0 for 111 at an economy rate of 11.1. In the next eight, Noor has picked up 12 for 215 at an economy rate of 7.16. In the background, MS Dhoni had suggested that the Afghanistan wrist-spinner focus more on his legbreak than just going googly all the time. That’s had a knock-on effect of Noor targeting the stumps a little more and it’s worked for him.

This was the same pitch where CSK won their first game of the season against DC. Just like that day, Jamie Overton played a big role. Inglis, who had faced 25 of the first 36 balls of the innings and hit nine fours and six sixes, could only get on strike for eight of the 19 balls since the powerplay. Antsy to keep the rate up, he went for a scoop against Overton and got caught behind. Hitting the deck with both pace on and off, Overton delivered 10 dots in his first 18 balls and provided two wickets. LSG were 56 for 5 in 50 balls after the field restrictions. Shahbaz Ahmed helped LSG recover a bit, hitting the last ball of the innings for six, to push the score past 200.

There is a sign of respect that a bowler gives a batter in T20 cricket. Bowling wides. Hiding the ball away from his hitting arc because he keeps walloping everything. Andre Russell has experienced this. Kieron Pollard has experienced this. And for one glorious moment, Urvil experienced this when Digvesh Rathi speared a ball practically down into the next pitch in the sixth over. This was because Urvil had sent the previous four balls he had faced out of the ground.

Urvil came into the game with a balls-per-boundary ratio of 2 in the IPL but his longest innings was 19 balls. He will likely persist with this method, trying to whack everything for six, because India have won a T20 world title with batters playing the exact same way. Also, LSG didn’t really give him a reason to take a backward step. They kept bowling the ball to which he could clear his front leg and swing to midwicket. Seven of his eight sixes went there. He was barely 10 minutes into his innings when had a chance to hit six sixes back to back. Three off Avesh Khan. Two of Rathi. When the sixth ball that he carved over point bounced in front of the boundary, he threw his head back in utter disappointment.

At 41 off 8, Urvil had the chance to break the IPL’s record for the fastest fifty. But he ended up scoring just nine off the next five balls and had to settle for sharing the title with Yashasvi Jaiwal. When he finally fell for 65 off 23, CSK needed 78 runs in 64 balls.

Veer could’ve been dismissed twice off two balls in the 19th over off Avesh but Rathi and Pooran dropped straightforward chances. Veer capitalised by hitting a six to bring the equation down to 10 off the last over. LSG went to Aiden Markram, figuring an offspinner turning the ball away from the two left-hand batters in the middle might work. It didn’t. Dube, on 3 off 5, hit back-to-back sixes to finish the game

Brief scores:
Chennai Super Kings 208 for 5 in 19.2 overs (Sanju Samson 28, Rutraj Gaikwad 42, Urvil Patel 65, Kartik Sharma 20. Dewald Brevis 10, Shivam Dube 15*, Prashant Veer 17*; Digvesh Rathi 2-45, Avesh Khan 1-44, Shahbaz Ahmed 2-30) beat Lucknow Super Giants 203 for 8 in 20 overs (Josh Inglis 85, Mitchell Marsh 10, Rishabh Pant 15, Akshat Raghuwanshi 18, Shahbaz Ahmed 43*, Himmat Singh 17; Anshul Kamboj 2-47, Noor Ahmad 1-24, Jamie Overton 3-36) by five wickets

[Cricinfo]

Sports

Gill, Rashid lead GT’s demolition of Rajasthan Royals

Published

3 hours ago

2026/05/11

Thilina Walpola

Rashid Khan took 4 for 33 - his third four-fer in IPL. (BCCI)

Gujarat Titans rode their red-hot momentum wave to keep the Rajasthan Royals winless in Jaipur with a 77-run win, marking their biggest ever victory in their relatively short IPL history. Shubman Gill and Sai Sudharsan set up a big total with the bat, before the bowlers ran through the batting lineup to catapult the Titans to second position on the points table with only net run-rate separating them from table-toppers Sunrisers Hyderabad.

‎‎Brief Scores:

‎Gujarat Titans 229/4 in 20 overs [Shubman Gill 84, Sai Sudharsan 55, Washington Sundar 37n.o.; Brijesh Sharma 2-47]

‎Rajasthan Royals 152 in 16.3 overs [Ravindra Jadeja 38, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi 36; Rashid Khan 4-22, Jason Holder 3-12, Kagiso Rabada 2-33]

‎‎Who won GT the match?

‎‎It was another day out for the famed Sudharsan-Gill combination. But once again, it was GT’s bowling unit that sealed this contest. On a good batting strip, 230 was certainly not beyond the realms of possibility for RR after yet another blazing Vaibhav Sooryavanshi start. But Kagiso Rabada continued to make hay in the Powerplay, bouncing out Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shimron Hetmyer after Mohammed Siraj dismissed Sooryavanshi off the short ball. The game was still on after the Royals scored 78 in the Powerplay but Rashid Khan cut the middle-order to size to shut the hosts out.

‎A lengthy opening over spells doom for RR

‎‎Perhaps the only thing that went right on the evening for RR was the toss as Yashasvi Jaiswal, standing in for an injured Riyan Parag, elected to field first. The hosts donned an all-pink kit to support a noble cause but their bowling unit, which hadn’t been in the pink of health for a few games, looked far from incisive. And nothing drove home that fact more than an 11-ball opening over from Jofra Archer, who overstepped and bowled multiple wides as he failed to control the swing on offer. Eighteen runs came off the first over and Archer was replaced by Brijesh Sharma in the third over, summing up what was to come for the Royals.

‎‎Gill, Sudharsan make merry

‎‎The bowling was shoddy and for a pair that has mastered the art of percentage batting, Gill and Sudharsan were not going to miss out. Tushar Deshpande speared too many outside leg stump to the left-hander, who was the dominator early on before Gill put on an exhibition of aesthetic power-hitting, launching Archer down the ground with effortless ease. An 82-run Powerplay marked GT’s most productive phase of the season. Both batters eventually brought up their fifties – off 30 balls each.

‎‎Did RR pull things back?

‎‎Head coach Kumar Sangakkara had an animated chat with his players during the timeout that followed the Powerplay. It seemed to work to some extent as the spin duo of Ravindra Jadeja and Yash Raj Punja tightened the screws, combining for 2/71 off their eight overs. The steady slowdown told on Sudharsan as he miscued a slot delivery off Punja to long on, before Buttler shanked a 107.2 kph Jadeja delivery to long off. On the back of the spinners’ success, Jaiswal turned to an over of part-time spin from Donovan Ferreira but once the pacers returned, they travelled again. Gill found an able ally in Washington Sundar, who kept the momentum going with regular hits to the fence.

‎‎Archer endured an off day so bad that he did not even bowl his fourth over. Gill missed out on a hundred and Brijesh sent down a four-run 19th over, but Sundar and Rahul Tewatia peeled off three sixes off Deshpande’s final over to wrest momentum back in the Titans’ favor as they finished on 229.

‎‎Sooryavanshi tees off again

‎‎A breezy but entertaining blitz this time. Little surprise that he struck a six off the first ball he faced from Siraj, although he jammed an inswinging yorker onto his right ankle, demanding the physio’s attention. He visibly struggled with his running and there were a couple of streaky shots that followed, but it did not seem to affect him as he smashed a couple of sixes off Rabada. His skill was on full display with a late cut through backward point and a drill straight back past Siraj, but a well-directed bumper at the body got the better of him as Siraj let out a huge roar.

‎‎Rashid Khan closes out the game

‎‎Dhruv Jurel attacked the pacers in the Powerplay, underlined by a 22-run over off Siraj. But once Rashid was introduced, Jurel’s recent woes against spin surfaced again. He was cleaned up by a googly before Donovan Ferreira was bamboozled by the leg-break a couple of deliveries later. Rashid was impeccable with his lengths and would go on to nab two more including Ravindra Jadeja, who showed positive intent early on with a six and a four off his first two balls but eventually had too much on his plate. Closing it out – fittingly with a bunch of short-pitched deliveries – was Jason Holder, who continued his rich vein of form with the ball as RR were bundled out inside the 17th over.

‎‎Where do the teams go next?

‎‎GT fly back home to face SRH on Tuesday (May 12) in a contest that could hand the winner a foot in the playoffs. RR are set for another long break and do not play for the next week, taking the field against Delhi Capitals in Delhi on Sunday (May 17).