The Hindu : Warne gets one-year suspension

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 23, 2003

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Warne gets one-year suspension

MELBOURNE Feb. 22. Australia's leading wicket-taker, Shane Warne, was suspended from playing cricket for 12 months today, days after he tested positive for a banned diuretic.

Warne immediately called himself a victim of the "anti-doping hysteria" and said he would go on appeal.

The 33-year-old leg spinner appeared before an Australian Cricket Board (ACB) anti-doping committee on Friday and the three-person committee took statements from seven witnesses in an eight-hour hearing, before adjourning. Warne was told of the committee's decision at 11 a.m. local time on Saturday behind closed doors at the ACB's Melbourne headquarters, but the suspension was not publicly announced for another two hours.

Justice Glen Williams, who chaired the panel, made a brief statement to the media who had camped outside the building for one-and-a-half days before they were ushered in.

"The committee found the charge proved and imposed on player Shane Keith Warne... (a ban) for the period of 12 months dated from February 10, 2003'', he said.

The ban rules Warne out of the World Cup and the upcoming Test series against the West Indies, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, India, and also places him in doubt for the Sri Lanka tour planned for February 2004.

A stunned Warne spoke of his shock and his plans to contest the decision when reading a prepared statement at a news conference later in the afternoon.

``First of all I would like to say that I am absolutely devastated and very upset at the committee's decision for suspending me for 12 months,'' Warne said. "I will appeal. I feel that I am a victim of the anti-doping hysteria. I also want to repeat I have never taken any performance-enhancing drugs and I never will," he added. ``The tablet I took on the 21st of January was a fluid tablet. I did not know it as a diuretic. I knew it as a fluid tablet.

"I feel that a 12-month suspension is a very harsh penalty for not checking what I took with anyone."

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