Former New Zealand all-rounder Doug Bracewell has admitted using cocaine after the first day of Essex’s final County Championship match last year.<\/p>\n
Bracewell returned the positive test on 25 September – the second day of the match against Somerset at Chelmsford.<\/p>\n
He was notified by the Cricket Regulator in November and responded on 8 December, confirming he had used cocaine after the first day of the fixture, into the early hours of the following morning.<\/p>\n
Bracewell, who signed for Essex for the final three Championship matches of the season, opened the bowling on day one, claiming two wickets as Somerset moved to 339-6. He was not required to bat on day two and Essex eventually won the match by seven wickets.<\/p>\n
After being notified of the positive test, Bracewell then retired from cricket on 28 December. The Regulator has still issued him with a two-year ban.<\/p>\n
Part of a famous New Zealand cricketing family \u2013 his uncle John Bracewell played 28 Tests and cousin Michael is a current Black Cap \u2013 Doug played 69 international matches across formats.<\/p>\n
He also previously served a one-month ban for cocaine use in 2024.<\/p>\n
Bracewell has accepted the sanction, while Essex will not face punishment.<\/p>\n
“Essex can confirm that Doug Bracewell failed a routine drugs test in September 2025,” said a club statement.<\/p>\n
“The club supports the Cricket Regulator’s decision to impose a period of ineligibility of two years. All employees are required to meet the highest standards of professional conduct.<\/p>\n
“While the club does not condone Bracewell’s behaviour, we are committed to supporting him through rehabilitation in line with our policies and procedures.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former New Zealand all-rounder Doug Bracewell has admitted using cocaine after the first day of Essex’s final County…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-548423","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-cricket","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}