Dale Steyn says he was “very disappointed” at public reaction during his recent drug scare
Neil Manthorp19-Aug-2009Dale Steyn has said he was “very disappointed” at public reaction during his recent drug scare and says that, though his name has been cleared after providing an adverse analytical finding during routine testing in the IPL, he fears some people will always associate him with illegal substance abuse.”I kept being assured by our own team doctor that I had nothing to worryabout but everyone else’s first reaction was to immediately think I’d donesomething wrong,” Steyn told Cricinfo. “People’s reactions have probablybeen the hardest thing to deal with.”When I was first told that there was an adverse finding I thought itwas a joke. I actually laughed because as a professional cricketer I’ve beenalways been really careful about what medicine I take. Then I was told thatthis was going to a medical review committee and I got pretty scared. Maybethere had been a mistake? Anyway, I’m happy that it’s over now – even thoughit should never have happened in the first place,” Steyn said.Many South African officials are still wary of speaking on the issue, given that it involves the powerful IPL, but the belief that Steyn was shabbily treated is clearly widespread. “He took a common headache medicine – Myprodol – containing codeine,which is not a prohibited substance. In certain people codeine can cause ahigh concentration of morphine in the urine. Anyone who has laboratoryexperience in analysing this situation knows that a slightly higher presenceof morphine than otherwise permitted is totally acceptable where there isalso this level of codeine,” one CSA official said.South African Cricketers Association (SACA) chief executive Tony Irish was equally condemnatory of the laboratory. “This has been a nightmare situation where a laboratory’s poor handling of a player’s test sample has left a very unfair question mark over that player,” he said.”South Africa’s Institute for Drug Free Sport is a very competentorganisation with established protocols and procedures. There is a fullyaccredited laboratory in Bloemfontein which would have handled this wholething properly,” Irish said. “It would have taken them a few hours to confirm that thereshouldn’t even be an adverse analytical finding. It would have all beenquite normal. The Doping Control Laboratory used by IPL was an outsourcedcommercial one located outside SA.”Someone owes Dale Steyn a big apology.”