The Indian players can be forgiven for thinking that an online system for sharing schedules with WADA just isn’t secure enough given their profile. Running the risk of identity theft or stolen credit card information is one thing but having your life endangered by someone hacking into WADA computers is quite another. Mukul Kesavan in the Telegraph, the Kolkata daily, believes there is a case to be made against those holding out against WADA but calls for some tempered criticism.

In the red corner, we have nationalist grunts on a hair-trigger, for whom every criticism of the Indian cricket team is an alien conspiracy; in the blue corner, we have discriminating, non-chauvinist Indian commentators who are convinced that India’s perverse stars and their vulgar patron, the BCCI, have done this deliberately to embarrass people like them...

The Indian board has rejected ICC's anti-doping policy on the behest of its players who felt the 'whereabouts' clause - which mandates that athletes to make themselves available for testing every day of the year - was a violation of their privacy and threat to their security. The Outlook magazine's Rohit Mahajan believes an ‘intrusive’ doping rule concerns all and the Indian cricketers have raised the lone banner of revolt.

But does cricket, a highly skill-based sport, need such drastic testing? Yes, says Ashok Ahuja, former head of the department of sports medicine, National Institute of Sports, Patiala. “The role of steroids has increased in cricket, especially among pace bowlers, to build up the muscles and recover from injuries,” he told Outlook. Ahuja also talks about the use of recreational drugs by sportspersons. “Some superstar athletes, moving in seven-star society, use recreational drugs,” he says, adding that the BCCI’s suggestion that it could produce a player for testing on a 24-hour notice won’t be acceptable because these drugs can be washed out of the system in that time.

While the complete exclusion of the 'whereabouts' clause from cricket looks unlikely, the ICC could go the FIFA way and put injured players and those serving suspensions on the International Registered Testing Pool, writes KP Mohan in the Hindu.

Obviously FIFA is of the opinion that injuries and doping are closely related. Steroids generally speed up recovery after injuries. The list is not based on rankings of teams or countries. It is a dynamic list and could evolve, but basically FIFA has stuck to its argument that team sport has to be treated differently, giving a ray of hope for other team sports in their fight against the ‘whereabouts’ rules.

When India's own anti-doping agency sent out a circular asking all sporting bodies to fall in line, the BCCI didn't even bother to reply and its silence was taken as consent. The feeling throughout the present anti-doping impasse has been that not one board official has even bothered to check out the WADA statutes or its website and the players' stand is merely an extension of the fact that they have the board's support, writes Dileep Premachandran in his blog on the Guardian website.

After what happened in Lahore in March, and previous terrorist threats to the likes of Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni, the players are petrified that revealing their future whereabouts to Wada will compromise their safety. Fair enough, you'd think, except for the fact that Wada's online process is as secure as most banking transactions. You, I or AN Ordinary won't be able to gatecrash Yuvraj Singh's next party.

Indian cricketers have been criticised for their refusal to sign the ICC anti-doping policy which includes a clause by which they must inform of their location for an hour each day for a period of three months. However Rajyavardhan Rathore, an Olympic silver medallist in shooting, believes by standing its ground the cricket establishment has a unique opportunity to help improve a system that has worldwide compliance and protects athletes who commit years of training to compete at the highest level, from being cheated by dope-criminals. He writes in his blog:

WADA spends millions of dollars on research. So why isn’t it possible to come up with an alternative way for out-of-competition testing? The practical issues around administering out-of-competition testing are also amusing, considering many of India's sportspersons have their roots in villages and often visit them, the addresses given out could be as unidentifiable as taal no 3, or quila no 6, near jhulli walan gali, Gandhi Nagar. Indian villages are not completely mapped or on GPS like the western world and finding such locations is quite impossible without the entire village knowing about outsiders looking very lost.

Yuvraj Singh's plea to treat cricketers differently in the WADA whereabouts clause has evoked mixed reactions. Pradeep Magazine of the Hindustan Times sides with the cricketers, saying that they actually have a valid point. In a team sport in which they’re on the field for almost 11 months a year, and are available for testing, why not let them live in peace for a month?

Let us not take away the right of the players to protect their privacy. In the eyes of the law, one is innocent until proven guilty. This clause, however, makes an athlete guilty until proven innocent. I’m sure it not only goes against the tenets of a civilized society, but is also bad in law.

In the same paper, Anand Vasu comments on the BCCI's reaction to the issue, and questions why they have to roadblock pretty much anything the ICC comes up with. Read on in his blog Bat on Regardless.

Usually when the board gets its hands dirty there’s either money or power involved. In this case there are no millions to be made, but certainly there’s power to be lost.

Writing in the Indian Express, Harsha Bhogle feels cricket probably doesn’t need the extreme physical effort that track and field athletes and cyclists do (in the rogues gallery those are the prime portraits) but as the game moves increasingly to a shorter form, requiring concentrated but small bursts of performance, the need to be more vigilant is greater.

There is little doubt that drug testing has to be mandatory in cricket. Every good system must create an atmosphere for the clean to thrive and the weeds to be uprooted. And there are both in our sport as there will be even among priests and kindergarten teachers. Sometimes you don’t just have to be clean, you have to be demonstrably clean and that is a small price to pay in the effort to cleanse a sport.

To say that cricketers are 'different' and therefore deserve their privacy reeks of supercilious nonsense and betrays a lack of understanding of the big picture. Ayaz Memon in his column in Daily News & Analysis draws up an analogy with 'nakabandis' (checkpoints).

Nobody likes to be stopped in the middle of the road and for no apparent reason, but given the widespread instances of terror-related crime, everybody has learnt to adapt to this inconvenience.

The honourable intentions of Wada have now brought it to the door of Indian cricket, but the agency is a proud guest. It is not impressed by wealth nor is it star-struck. Be it the BCCI, FIFA or Rafael Nadal, Wada would not genuflect. It would not even be accommodating. Akshay Sawai in Open magazine believes the agency would not wait meekly at the door but will stride in, aware of its clout. It would deliver the message and walk out.

Cricket may be relatively drug free, compared to baseball, but the fact that the ICC has been conscious of snuffing out the illegal elements in the game is laudatory. The 'whereabouts' rule may seem draconian, but it's something the players will have to accept and live with in professional sport today, writes Michael Atherton in the Times.

And for cricketers who want their achievements to be recognised rather than mired in suspicion, they should think about someone such as Mark McGwire, the former Major League home run record-holder who has yet to be inducted into the Hall of Fame because of doubts about his drug taking. By refusing to answer questions about steroid abuse in front of a congressional hearing, McGwire cast doubt on his record and that of everyone else of that era.

So what's the fuss all about? Is complying with the WADA code on a daily basis as difficult as it's made out to be by the Indian cricketers? India's gold medal hero in the Beijing Olympics, Abhinav Bindra, religiously follows the code, which he says easily blends into your daily routine. Bindra describes his routine to the Indian Express. Athletes and other sportspersons who still have apprehensions about the code may want to read this.

“I’m home most days from 7am to 8 am, so that time suits me perfectly,” Bindra said. "Anyway, you’re ready to pee when you get up in the morning and that’s all they would ask for.” Entries made by the athlete are expected to stand for a quarter of the year, unless he/she changes plans, like Bindra did for today. “So I logged on, clicked on the box for August 4, 2009 on the calendar, disabled my usual testing slot, and entered the new evening one,” Bindra said.

An editorial in the Hindu slams the Indian cricketers and the BCCI for sending out a misleading message to the international sports community, especially since recent examples have proven that cricket is not 'wholly clean.' Indian cricket would be stupid not to fall in line with the code.

The ICC should be applauded for endorsing the regulations because WADA will vastly improve the its ability to identify those players who are struggling with addiction or who are using banned substances, writes Neil Johnson in the Witness. Early detection will provide affected players with the opportunity to come clean and to get their lives back on track.

In more recent times drug addictions have destroyed the careers of many fine cricketers. Chris Lewis and Ed Giddins, both English Test bowlers’ have struggled with addiction, as has Dermot Reeve whose cocaine habit saw him lose a lucrative commentary contract with Channel 4 television.

Gordon Farquhar, writing on the BBC Cricket website, says that the BCCI's refusal to adopt the WADA code is a battle of wills which could determine who holds the power in world cricket.

The refusal by India's cricketers to sign up to WADA rules and the endorsement by the country's cricket authorities mirror the realities of Indian sport. Boria Majumdar writing for the BBC website, believes the lack of an Olympic sporting culture in India - the country boasts a paltry 17 medals in 88 years of competing at the Games - is the reason for its colossal national ignorance about international sporting rules, especially anti-doping ones.

With cricket having a virtual monopoly over the Indian sportscape, the urge to protect the country's cricketers is paramount - even if it means ignoring global sporting realities.

And this is where the Indian cricket board could have played a more proactive role - it is the board's responsibility to explain to the players that they are part of a global sporting fraternity and need to act as such.

In his column on Dreamcricket.com, Suresh Menon says the BCCI-WADA dispute is a heart versus head issue. The heart says that players are entitled to their privacy, and security might be a valid point considering the threats some Indian players have received. However, the head says that this cannot be reduced to a question of individual convenience when larger issues are at stake.

If India are banned from future ICC tournaments (that means all international cricket), that would be too high a price to pay for what is at worst an inconvenience. Privacy and security are good arguments, but it is inconvenience that is at the bottom of the refusal to sign.

Indian cricket is becoming reflexively disposed towards standoffs. And the more weighty the powers gathered against it, the more inspired tend to be the BCCI’s statements of principle. This editorial piece from the Indian Express questions whether the BCCI is picking a fight where none need exist?