{"id":954126,"date":"2026-11-06T00:40:14","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T00:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/954126\/"},"modified":"2026-11-06T00:40:14","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T00:40:14","slug":"aussie-batter-chris-lynn-admitted-to-several-hours-of-cocaine-use-in-days-before-t20-blast-title-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/954126\/","title":{"rendered":"Aussie batter Chris Lynn admitted to \u2018several hours\u2019 of cocaine use in days before T20 Blast title win"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian cricket<\/a> veteran Chris Lynn has been revealed to have served a secret ban for failing a drugs test during the T20 Blast finals.<\/p>\n

England\u2019s Cricket Regulator only announced Lynn\u2019s sanction on Thursday, just weeks out from the start of the Big Bash season in Australia.<\/p>\n

The 36-year-old had undergone an in-competition doping test on July 18 while his Northampton Steelbacks were competing on T20 Blast Finals Day.<\/p>\n

Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today Arrow<\/a><\/p>\n

The sample returned an adverse finding for cocaine\u2019s metabolite benzoylecgonine.<\/p>\n

Lynn was provisionally suspended on July 31 \u2014 two days after it had been announced he was ruled out of a Sri Lankan T20 tournament due to a leg injury.<\/p>\n

He responded to the Cricket Regulator on August 20, confirming \u201cthat he had used cocaine on 15 and 16 July 2026 (being during a period of several hours across the evening and into the early hours)\u201c.<\/p>\n

He had played a quarter-final match earlier on July 15.<\/p>\n

But Lynn successfully argued his cocaine use that night amounted to an out-of-competition violation unrelated to sporting performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIncluded in the response was expert evidence supporting the position that the ingestion of cocaine occurred out-of-competition,\u201d the Cricket Regulator said.<\/p>\n

\"LynnLynn has scored more Big Bash runs than any other cricketer. Credit: AAPBe the first to know: Add 7NEWS as your preferred news source on Google\"Google<\/p>\n

On the day of his doping test, Lynn scored a team-high 39 runs in Northampton\u2019s semi-final win over Somerset and made four in the final against Hampshire as the Steelbacks claimed the T20 Blast title.<\/p>\n

He was formally charged by the Cricket Regulator on September 23.<\/p>\n

Standard out-of-competition cocaine penalties followed, with Lynn accepting a three-month ban that would be reduced to one month after he completed a substance abuse treatment program.<\/p>\n

He later had one charge dropped because the reported level was below the minimum required under world anti-doping regulations, but accepted the other that benzoylecgonine was found in his system.<\/p>\n

Lynn has not played a match since his sole T20 appearance in Sri Lanka on July 23 prior to learning of his ban.<\/p>\n

The BBL\u2019s all-time leading run-scorer, he has been linked with the Melbourne Renegades for the 2026-27 Big Bash after previous stints with the Adelaide Strikers and Brisbane Heat.<\/p>\n

The Renegades are yet to announce his signing.<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian cricket veteran Chris Lynn has been revealed to have served a secret ban for failing a drugs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":954127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,81416,740,1625,588,85,438546],"class_list":["post-954126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-big-bash-league-bbl","tag-cricket","tag-lifestyle","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-your-feed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=954126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/954127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=954126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=954126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=954126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}