South Africa's Zubayr Hamza provisionally suspended by ICC for doping violation

Dubai, March 25 (IANS) South Africa batter Zubayr Hamza was on Friday "provisionally suspended" by the ICC after he tested positive for a prohibited substance under the anti-doping code."Hamza has been charged with the presence and/or use of a prohibited substance following the detection of Furosemide in a sample collected out-of-competition on 17 January 2022 and has been provisionally suspended pending the outcome of the disciplinary process," the ICC said in a statement."Furosemide is a Specified Substance contained in Section S5 of the 2022 WADA Prohibited List."Earlier on Wednesday, the Cricket South Africa (CSA) issued a statement, which said that Hamza was "not disputing" the positive test and was "cooperating fully with the ICC" and had agreed to voluntary suspension commencing immediately while written submissions were presented to the ICC.Furosemide is not a performance-enhancing substance, and CSA said that Hamza had been able to identify how it had entered his system."The process to follow will entail presenting evidence that there was no fault or negligence, or no significant fault or negligence on the part of Zubayr. CSA, SACA [South African Cricketers' Association] and WPCA [Western Province Cricket Association] are supporting Zubayr in this process, and will continue to do so until the matter is concluded," the CSA statement said.Hamza made his Test debut against Pakistan in early 2019 when he became South Africa's 100th Test player since readmission. He made his ODI debut against Netherlands in November last year.The batter, who has played six Tests in all, had withdrawn from both Test and ODI series because of 'personal reasons' when the squad was announced last week, for the Bangladesh series.
--IANSavn/bsk

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