Chris Lynn served one-month ban for cocaine use after positive test on T20 Blast Finals Day, England's Cricket Regulator confirms
Australian batter Chris Lynn has served a one-month suspension after testing positive for cocaine during the T20 Blast Finals Day in July, with England's Cricket Regulator confirming the case on Friday.
Australian batter Chris Lynn has served a one-month suspension after testing positive for cocaine during England's domestic Twenty20 competition, England's Cricket Regulator confirmed on Friday, bringing to light a disciplinary case that had remained private for months.
The 36-year-old, who was representing Northamptonshire in the T20 Blast, returned a positive result in a routine anti-doping test conducted on Finals Day on 18 July, when his side won the title for the third time. The regulator made the outcome public on Friday, months after the suspension had already been served.
Lynn's urine sample was sent to a laboratory in France accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency, which returned an adverse analytical finding for benzoylecgonine, a metabolite of cocaine. Cocaine is listed under section S.6A of the 2026 WADA Prohibited List as a stimulant, and is specifically identified as a substance of abuse.
The timeline of the case stretches back to the summer. Lynn was provisionally suspended on 31 July after being notified of the adverse finding, and on 20 August he responded to the charge, confirming that he had used cocaine during a period of several hours across the evening of 15 July and into the early hours of 16 July.
That admission came three weeks after the positive test. Lynn had played on Finals Day itself, making scores of 39 and 4 as Northamptonshire lifted the trophy, and earlier in the week he had retired hurt during the quarter-final win over Gloucestershire after being struck on the foot by a low full toss.
The regulator initially brought two anti-doping charges against Lynn under the England and Wales Cricket Board's anti-doping rules, but one was later dropped after the level of cocaine detected in his sample fell below the minimum threshold required under WADA rules.
It also accepted Lynn's position that the drug had been used out of competition and was unrelated to his sporting performance. That distinction mattered: the regulator had initially sought a three-month suspension, but reduced it to one month after Lynn confirmed he had completed a substance abuse treatment programme, which was deemed to have been finished on 30 August, a month after his provisional suspension began.
The case leaves Lynn, the leading run-scorer in Big Bash League history and a former Australia international with four one-day internationals and 18 T20 matches to his name, without a team for the coming season. He has not played professional cricket since the start of his suspension and has yet to sign with a Big Bash League side for the upcoming campaign.
For English cricket, the disclosure is a reminder of how the anti-doping system works in practice: routine testing on finals day, analysis at an accredited overseas laboratory, a provisional suspension while the case is examined, and a sanction shaped by whether the substance was used in or out of competition and by the player's willingness to complete treatment.
What happens next for Lynn is now the open question. The suspension has been served and the treatment programme completed, so there is no regulatory bar on his return, but any comeback would depend on a team being willing to sign a 36-year-old batter whose last professional appearance came before a drug ban that has only now become public.
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