India’s anti-doping net has widened again, and this time, two of the country’s T20 World Cup-winning cricketers are part of the fresh update. Abhishek Sharma and Axar Patel have been added to the National Anti-Doping Agency’s Registered Testing Pool for the second quarter of 2026, replacing Smriti Mandhana and Shreyas Iyer in the revised list. The updated RTP now covers 348 athletes across disciplines, with cricket accounting for 14 names.
The change is significant not because it points to any allegation, but because of what RTP membership actually means. Athletes in the pool fall under a tighter anti-doping compliance structure. They must regularly submit whereabouts details, including where they will be training, living, and competing, and remain available during a fixed one-hour window every day for possible testing. Under the World Anti-Doping Agency framework, a combination of three missed tests and filing failures within a 12-month period can amount to an anti-doping rule violation.
What Abhishek Sharma and Axar Patel’s inclusion means
For Indian cricket, the update reflects how rapidly player status can shift within the national anti-doping monitoring structure. Abhishek Sharma and Axar Patel are now part of the group of elite cricketers subject to the stricter testing and reporting obligations that come with RTP inclusion. Their addition comes in place of Smriti Mandhana and Shreyas Iyer, whose names featured in the earlier cycle of the list. In the first quarter of 2026, the RTP had 347 athletes and included Mandhana and Jemimah Rodrigues among the notable cricket additions.
The broader cricket contingent, however, remains largely unchanged. The updated list continues to feature leading men’s players such as Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant, Jasprit Bumrah, KL Rahul, Arshdeep Singh and Tilak Varma. From the women’s side, Deepti Sharma, Shafali Verma and Renuka Singh Thakur continue to remain in the pool. In all, 14 cricketers are part of the latest RTP.
The cricket update sits inside a much larger anti-doping picture. Athletics continues to dominate the RTP, with its representation rising from 118 in the first quarter list to 134 in the latest one. That underlines where the heaviest emphasis on testing currently lies, even though cricket remains the headline sport whenever prominent international names are involved. PTI’s first-quarter report had already noted the expanded anti-doping focus ahead of major events in 2026, with NADA increasing the size of the pool significantly from the previous cycle.
So while Abhishek Sharma and Axar Patel entering the RTP is not a disciplinary story, it is an important administrative one. It places both players under a more rigorous year-round anti-doping regime and highlights NADA’s ongoing efforts to keep a closer watch on India’s top athletes across sports. In practical terms, it means more compliance, stricter availability requirements and a place in the country’s highest-priority testing bracket.
