India’s T20 World Cup winners Abhishek Sharma and Axar Patel have been named in the National Anti-Doping Agency’s (NADA) Registered Testing Pool (RTP) for the second quarter of 2026. The update sees them take the places of Smriti Mandhana and Shreyas Iyer in the revised list.
NADA is India’s leading anti-doping authority, tasked with promoting, coordinating, and overseeing efforts to eliminate performance-enhancing drug use in sport. Working under the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) framework, it aims to protect the credibility of competition and help ensure athletes perform in a clean and fair environment. Its mandate includes conducting in-competition and out-of-competition testing, handling test results, and applying sanctions when violations occur.
The RTP plays a central role in that system. It covers top-tier athletes who are required to regularly share their whereabouts, including where they are based and their training plans, so they can be selected for testing at short notice. Athletes are also expected to be reachable during a daily one-hour testing window, and repeated non-compliance—such as three missed obligations—can be treated as an anti-doping rule violation.
The newest RTP roster lists 348 athletes across multiple sports. In cricket, the lineup is mostly steady, with several well-known names continuing to feature. The group includes Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant, Jasprit Bumrah, KL Rahul, Arshdeep Singh, and Tilak Varma. Among women cricketers, Deepti Sharma, Shafali Verma, and Renuka Singh Thakur remain part of the pool. Overall, the cricket category contributes 14 players to the testing list.
Athletics remains the largest section of the RTP, expanding its representation from 118 to 134 athletes. Among those listed are steeplechaser Avinash Sable, hurdler Jyothi Yarraji, decathlete Tejaswin Shankar, and sprinter Animesh Kujur. The athletics contingent also includes long jumpers Shaili Singh and M Sreeshankar, along with discus thrower Tajinderpal Singh Toor.
Other sports are represented as well. Archery includes Deepika Kumari, Rakesh Kumar, and para-archer Sheetal Devi. The hockey group features Manpreet Singh, Harmanpreet Singh, Amit Rohidas, Hardik Singh, Salima Tete, Savita Punia, and Navneet Kaur. Badminton has eight players in the pool, among them PV Sindhu, Lakshya Sen, and Gayatri Gopichand. Boxing is represented by 22 athletes, with names such as Nikhat Zareen, Nishant Dev, Jaismine Lamboria, and Olympic bronze medallist Lovlina Borgohain. Wrestling forms a major block too, with 31 athletes listed, including Olympic medallist Aman Sehrawat.
The updated RTP underscores NADA’s ongoing push to uphold transparency and integrity across Indian sport by keeping a close watch on leading athletes across disciplines.
