LAHORE: The International Cricket Council has imposed a 15-month ban on United Arab Emirates batter Asif Khan following an anti-doping violation.
According to the ICC, Asif Khan underwent a dope test on September 8, 2025, in which the presence of a prohibited substance was detected.
The 36-year-old Asif Khan of the UAE admitted a violation of Article 2.1 of the ICC Anti-Doping Code and accepted the 15-month ban.
Article 2.1 of the Code addresses the presence of a prohibited substance or its metabolites or markers in an athlete’s sample. It is a strict liability provision: the anti-doping rule violation is established by the presence of the substance itself, without any requirement for the governing body to demonstrate intent, fault, negligence or knowing use on the part of the athlete.
The principle exists because proving an athlete’s state of mind would be practically impossible in most cases, and because the responsibility for what enters an athlete’s body rests, under the Code, with the athlete.
According to the ICC, the 15-month ban on Asif Khan will be counted from September 8, 2025, and will continue until December 7, 2026.
The backdating of the sanction to the date of sample collection is standard practice where an athlete has been provisionally suspended from that date, ensuring that the period already served counts toward the sanction rather than being added to it.
Under anti-doping regulations, Asif Khan’s individual results from September 8, 2025, to December 29, 2025, have also been annulled. As a consequence, medals, points, prize money and other awards obtained during this period will also be withdrawn.
The disqualification of results is a routine consequence under the Code, reflecting the principle that competitive outcomes achieved while a prohibited substance was present cannot be allowed to stand.
Asif Khan began his international career for the United Arab Emirates in 2022.
He has to date played 38 One Day Internationals and 56 Twenty20 Internationals representing the UAE.
The case highlights the reach of anti-doping enforcement into cricket’s Associate Member nations. The ICC administers testing across its membership in accordance with the World Anti-Doping Code, to which it is a signatory, with sample collection conducted both in competition and out of competition.
Players in Associate cricket frequently combine international commitments with other employment and operate with considerably less access to team medical staff, nutritionists and dedicated anti-doping education than counterparts in Full Member nations. Inadvertent ingestion through contaminated nutritional supplements or medications obtained without checking against the prohibited list is a recurring theme in doping cases across sport.
The 15-month sanction — shorter than the standard four-year period applicable to intentional violations — reflects the reductions available under the Code where an athlete establishes that the violation was not intentional and provides prompt admission.
Asif Khan will be eligible to resume competitive cricket from December 8, 2026.
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