The case continued for three more years, though further details were only recently published after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled against Evans, handing him a backdated two-year ban and removing two years of cricket from his personal records. This was despite the CAS panel ruling that Evans had “rebutted the presumption of intent” – that is, concluding he had no intention to dope.
In May 2024, the National Anti-Doping Panel (NADP) found that Evans bore “no significant fault or negligence” for the failed test, a decision which was appealed by UK Anti-Doping (UKAD). That appeal was also unsuccessful, but the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) then filed a third appeal to CAS. The third appeal was partially upheld, and Evans learned his punishment in June.
The CAS judgment was only published on October 29, nearly four years after Evans was notified of his positive test. He has since revealed the impact that the long-running case has had on him and his family in an interview with Mike Atherton in the Times newspaper.
“I truly hope no one else has to go through the same trauma,” he said. “I became depressed and numb to everything. My world was turned upside-down. I didn’t leave the house for weeks. I felt like I was dying inside. I was prescribed medicine to help with suicidal thoughts.”
The CAS panel emphasised that based on the evidence and considerations of Evans’ case – which they describe as “rare” and “confirmed to its own unique facts” – there was no intention to dope, but Evans was unable to specify how the drug entered his system, beyond citing possible environmental contamination or a contaminated dietary supplement.
The CAS panel noted, in Evans’ favour, the facts that he had been acquitted twice – by the NADP and then an appeal tribunal – and had been tested approximately 20 times over his career without any previous adverse analytical finding. It also noted that he had also shown “notable diligence” relating to his anti-doping obligations.
This was demonstrated through messages in the months leading up to the positive test, which showed Evans double-checking the safety of products provided to him by the ECB, and checking the Global Drug Reference Online about whether he could take Sudafed (a widely available over-the-counter cold and flu medication).
Other messages showed Evans had declined to consume a breakfast cereal offered to him by a prospective sponsor because the protein within it had not been batch-tested by Informed Sport, the global testing and supplement certification programme.
However, Evans’ inability to establish that the source of the ostarine in his sample was a specific contaminated product meant, despite his exhaustive efforts, the CAS panel could not establish that he bore ‘no fault or negligence’ for its presence in his body.
The panel also did not agree with Evans’ claim of contamination by one or more of the 13 supplements he had used in the 48 hours prior to the sample collection, though the specific tubs and containers for the supplements were no longer available for testing by the time Evans was notified of his failed test.
All of the supplements were Informed Sport-certified, and were batch-tested with negative results, while three were subject to blind product-testing by Informed Sport and also returned negative results.
The panel also surmised contamination was unlikely given no other Manchester Originals, Surrey or Lancashire player tested positive for Ostarine during the 2022 season, despite communal use of supplements and facilities.
Professor Pascal Kintz, an expert consulted by the panel, noted contamination was the more likely explanation for Evans’ positive test given deliberate use would require repetitive dosing to be effective, and thus would be flagged in hair analysis. Evans’ hair analysis showed no evidence of repeated, large-dose use of ostarine.
Professor David Cowan, an expert enlisted by UKAD, also argued the only plausible intentional use of ostarine consistent with the low concentration in Evans’ sample would involve administering it on one or more occasions, several days to one week before the urine sample was provided. He accepted at the NADP hearing that it is “unlikely one would take a microdose [of ostarine] deliberately”.
Evans said that he was “gutted” with the outcome of the appeal and added that his sole motivation had been to clear his name. “These four years were not about whether I was a doper. The science is there to prove that I wasn’t,” Evans added. “I had to find the [contaminated] product, which we didn’t do.”
The CAS panel ultimately ruled that WADA’s appeal should be partially upheld, resulting in a backdated two-year suspension for Evans – deemed to have commenced on May 28, 2024, the date he was initially cleared by the NADP – and his individual achievements from August 23, 2022 to May 28, 2024 being struck from his record.
Evans scored 1,395 T20 runs for six different teams during that period, including a career-best score of 118 not out for Surrey against Glamorgan. He will not miss any further cricket as a result of his backdated ban, and last month signed for Essex on a one-year deal, citing the need for a “new challenge” at the age of 39.
Richard Gould, the ECB’s chief executive, said that the governing body felt Evans’ positive test was “a clear case of contamination” and that he had fallen victim to a “heavy-handed and flawed system”. Lancashire (on behalf of Manchester Originals) declined to comment.
Vithushan Ehantharajah is an associate editor at Cricinfo; Matt Roller is a senior correspondent
