The South African Institute for Drug-Free Sport have confirmed the recreational drug used by Proteas fast bowler Kagiso Rabada earlier this year was cocaine.
Rabada served a one-month suspension for using cocaine during MI Cape Town’s SA20 campaign in early 2025.
He missed a month of the Gujarat Titans’ Indian Premier League before being included in South Africa’s squad for next week’s World Test Championship final against Australia in England.
The South African Institute for Drug-Free Sport published the findings on 3 June, confirmed the presence of Benzoylecgonine – a metabolite of cocaine – in Rabada’s results.
“Look, this is not an ideal situation. I don’t need too many pats on the back here. I’m going to be joining with the Proteas again. I’ve already spoken to them and I guess we can do so in more detail when we get together for an extended amount of time,” said Rabada recently.
“I think I owe it to them to talk about what happened – they’re my team-mates. We’ve come from so far, you know, and to my closest people I owe it to them.
“I think the biggest thing I took away from it is having gratitude for playing the game that we love. I’m just glad to be playing again – the process was handled really well.
“As you would have seen in my statement there are some people who would have been disappointed. And to those people I’m deeply sorry. The people closest to me are the ones I felt I let down.
“But life moves on. I’ll never be ‘Mr I Apologise’ too much. But I’ll never condone that action.”
The WTC final will start on 11 June. Australia are the reigning WTC title holders.
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