The next meeting of the ICC executives takes place early next month, and after years of weak management and being afraid to act, the International Cricket Council (ICC) could be at a crossroads.

That meeting could decide the future of the body which supposedly controls the game of cricket.

The ICC could easily come out of that meeting as a strong governing body and one worthy of comparison with FIFA and the IOC - one which controls football and one which controls the multi-sports Olympic Games; or it could come away a lame duck organisation - respected by only one of its members.

The reason for that is the stance of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on a clause in the anti-doping code as set out by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

The use of drugs has been prevalent in sport, in almost every sport and in its effort to rid sports of this dangerous practice, WADA has come up with a code - effective January 1 this year. This code calls for random, year-round, out-of-season testing. It includes a clause that says sportsmen and sportswomen must reveal their whereabouts and be available for testing at certain times, the penalty for not doing so is a ban of two years. The cricketers of India have refused to do so, and the BCCI has backed them.

concerns

CEO of International Cricket Council, Haroon Lorgat.

According to reports, the BCCI will be submitting a proposal to the ICC executive meeting next month.

Apart from their reasoning that cricket is different from almost every other sport and especially so athletics, that skill is paramount in cricket and that performance enhancing drugs do not necessarily assist performance in cricket, the cricketers of India have two concerns.

Number one is their security in their own country, and number two is that the request violates the privacy of the country's citizens as provided in the Indian constitution.

The BCCI's proposal, it is understood, is that the ICC should walk out of WADA and set up its own anti-doping code.

While India's cricketers may have a point re blowing their security cover, and that as far as performance is concerned, drugs in cricket is not equal to drugs in athletics, they should remember that they are part of the world of sport.

The world of sport is fighting against the use of drugs in sport and WADA was set up in 1999. India's cricketers and the BCCI should also remember that the rules apply to every sport, to every sports association, and to every sportsman and woman around the world, that the ICC became a member of WADA in 2006, that the BCCI was part of the unanimous ICC resolution last year to adopt the updated anti-doping code with the clause. Other top Indian sports stars have accepted the code and the clause, and according to John Fahey, the chairman of WADA, the rules, all of them, have been accepted by 571 sporting associations around the world.

Although many cricketers around the world have concerns over their privacy and what they call their "space", the cricketers from every other cricketing country have agreed to comply.

Instead of being diplomatic and trying to be nice, the ICC should remind the BCCI of its goal of participating in events like the Olympic Games. The ICC should also remind the BCCI that according to the IOC, compliance with WADA is mandatory to participating in events like the Asian Games and Olympic Games. And apart from reminding the cricketers of India and the BCCI that shortly before the protest by the players the BCCI had agreed to certain changes in the rules and the clause, the ICC should also tell them that they are one against the rest and if they want to play by themselves, they are free to do so.

On top of that, in an effort to satisfy the Indian players and the Indian board, the ICC has already decided to bend a little.

confidentiality agreements

The ICC has said that "players need not fill out the whereabouts forms themselves but can do so through a nodal official nominated by their home boards", that its "testing programme will be reasonable and conducted around matches, and not on holidays or when players are on vacation", and that "only two ICC officials, who will be bound by stringent confidentiality agreements, will have access at any point in time to players' whereabouts".

In a democratic world, the problem should be easy to solve. Power, money, however, can be very influential, and where as once upon a time the ICC was "controlled" by the powerful England and Australia, today it appears that the governing body is "controlled" by rich India.

It may not be so, but this time the world is watching. Apart from cheating, drugs in sport is dangerous, random testing, surprise testing, out of season testing must be the way to go in any effort to stop the practice, and the code, the clause, is crucial in the fight against drugs in sport.

Instead of falling in line and allowing themselves to be tested whenever and wherever, however, the Indian players and their board are protesting, and despite the problem of security for Indian stars in India, that is surprising.

Being available for random testing, in and out of season, is a small price to pay to keep sport clean - to protect the credibility of sport, to ensure that one is not guilty by association, to make sure that after a towering home-run, after an amazing run, and in the case of a batsman, after a brilliant double century, instead of cheering, no one is shaking his head and whispering, "I wonder if the ICC has a problem."

According to WADA, no exemption will be granted to any stakeholder, and according to the ICC, based on the words of chief executive officer Haroon Lorgat, the ICC and its members "have a zero-tolerance approach to corruption and rightly so because the integrity of our great sport with its great spirit is one of its greatest assets".

Most importantly, however, as far as the ICC is concerned, is the stance of FICA.

According to the Federation of International Cricketers' Association, although it agrees with the concerns of the Indian cricketers and the BCCI, the Indian players are not members of FICA, and if they are allowed to get away with their protest, if they do not comply with the rules of WADA, and if the ICC does not penalise them, it would ensure that players from the other countries "are relieved from similar obligations".