Topic: County Cricket

[Circa1892]

But on England captains - Vaughan is clearly done. Would imagine he’ll do GB News and do broadcasting for the Aussie sports channels moving forward. He won’t be on the BBC again.

[Crosby Nick]

There’s already been a couple of reports from Essex. Their Chairman had to stand down for using inappropriate language (wasn’t the exact wording) in a board meeting a few years ago.

[Crosby Nick]

But on England captains - Vaughan is clearly done. Would imagine he’ll do GB News and do broadcasting for the Aussie sports channels moving forward. He won’t be on the BBC again.

I predicted those events last week! Let’s face it, he won’t be short of sympathetic ears amongst the cricket watching audiences/country as a whole (?)...you can’t say anything these days etc etc

[Mighty_Red]

It’s about time people stopped pretending this was a Yorkshire only thing and realise it’s Yorkshire where the problem has been raised (and is probably the worst example). The ECB are going to have to take a lead on that and the England captain will need to lead by example.

Agreed, this stuff has gone on everywhere in society in general, but especially in places where ethnic minorities are not represented in big numbers. Cricket has had a big issue of late due the relatively elitist nature of the sport in this country.

The common theme is coaches being involved. When the coaches come up with stuff like this, the rest will follow and it shows the culture of the organisation.

[CheshireDave]

Azeem Rafiq being questioned by MPs this morning. Some absolutely shocking allegations from him about the way he was treated whilst at Yorkshire. If true the perpetrators should play no part in cricket again. The way Yorkshire CCC have dealt with this is embarrassing.

[Elzar]

But on England captains - Vaughan is clearly done. Would imagine he’ll do GB News and do broadcasting for the Aussie sports channels moving forward. He won’t be on the BBC again.

That would be some good news to come from this, don't have to listen to him again.

Vithushan Ehantharajah spoke really well about this on the latest Tailenders, a kind of basic version of what has been going on and who has lead the journalist investigations for the past few years.

[Crosby Nick]

Azeem Rafiq being questioned by MPs this morning. Some absolutely shocking allegations from him about the way he was treated whilst at Yorkshire. If true the perpetrators should play no part in cricket again. The way Yorkshire CCC have dealt with this is embarrassing.

It’s clearly a far wider issue within the game (and society?) than Yorkshire but they’ve certainly made things worse with the way they’ve handled it.

[rawcusk8]

Maurice Chambers: Second former Essex player makes racism allegations

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/59295933

[CheshireDave]

Maurice Chambers: Second former Essex player makes racism allegations

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/59295933

Tough reading that. Hopefully he'll name who it was who felt it was appropriate to behave like that.

[Kekule]

Sounds like Rafiq has gone to town on Yorkshire, and the game as a whole, in his evidence to the select committee. Said he made a complaint against Bresnan, along a few others which was largely ignored. And Martyn Moxon doesn't sound like a very nice bloke if he ripped Rafiq to shreds the day after Rafiq's son died.

Also said that his experiences are replicated up and down the country.

[Kekule]

Maurice Chambers: Second former Essex player makes racism allegations

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/59295933

That stuff sounds like the sort of stuff the chaps in Mark Butcher's "You guys are history" documentary had to put up with.  Except it's from 5-15 years ago and not from the 70s and 80s.

It's shocking.

[Commie Bobbie]

That stuff sounds like the sort of stuff the chaps in Mark Butcher's "You guys are history" documentary had to put up with.  Except it's from 5-15 years ago and not from the 70s and 80s.

It's shocking.

Its endemic in sport.

Is it really a shock when society elects someone who calls gay people, 'Bum Boys', Muslim women 'Postboxes' and black people 'Picadillies'?

Its not a sporting disease.

Its a national illness.

[voodoo ray]

It's been about as expected from what I've been reading. Absolute shit show of a club but probably not alone

[thaddeus]

It’s clearly a far wider issue within the game (and society?) than Yorkshire but they’ve certainly made things worse with the way they’ve handled it.

I've had Radio 5 on and Yorkshire's former chairman Roger Hutton came across poorly in the inquiry.  Another who, for whatever reason, won't call a spade a spade and instead just skirts around all the questions.

I don't want to focus on his speech patterns particularly as there may be many reasons why he stutters.  In was noticeable though that he spoke fluently when talking about how strong a moral compass he apparently has but then did the dithering Hugh Grant thing on every direct question.

[Commie Bobbie]

I've had Radio 5 on and Yorkshire's former chairman Roger Hutton came across poorly in the inquiry.  Another who, for whatever reason, won't call a spade a spade and instead just skirts around all the questions.

I don't want to focus on his speech patterns particularly as there may be many reasons why he stutters.  In was noticeable though that he spoke fluently when talking about how strong a moral compass he apparently has but then did the dithering Hugh Grant thing on every direct question.

I think the fact that Lord Patel has used the term 'institutionalised racism' makes me think that this isn't a one off - and is in fact the norm in the county game.

Probably what happens when the chairman of the county clubs are - to borrow Will Carling summation of the RFU back in the day - old farts.

[scatman]

I kinda feel Hutton really didn't have any options. He wasn't at the club for long, the trustees wouldn't support him. Him resigning was the only thing he could do and he showed up to this inquiry. Its not a surprise that Arthur and Moxon haven't shown up. Heartbreaking listening to Rafiq today.

[bornandbRED]

Fair play to him for speaking out. Unfortunately not at all surprising that this kind of behaviour was standard in the dressing room. Pretty damning that no notable national cricketer has come out in favour of Rafiq either - even Joe Root has refused to acknowledge the behaviour which was clearly endemic. As others have said, this kind of attitude and behaviour is standard practice across the U.K.

[Mighty_Red]

Just heard an interview with Mark Ramprakash on 5live. Pretty disappointing from him, not sure why he agreed to be interviewed if he didn't want to answer questions properly.

He acknowledged things were said in his day (80s and 90s) that were unacceptable now, but he doesn't seem to recognise that this has been unacceptable both publicly and in dressing rooms for a long while now. The allegations are only 10 years old (or less).

It sounds like Ramprakash simply wants to protect the institution that he is part of but the name calling is only one aspect. We can see that the club made every effort to protect their own even when the evidence was damning.

I've had Radio 5 on and Yorkshire's former chairman Roger Hutton came across poorly in the inquiry.  Another who, for whatever reason, won't call a spade a spade and instead just skirts around all the questions.

I actually thought he spoke well and gave us many details we were not aware of. I think it's hard for him to give an opinion on whether Yorkshire are institutional racist as he he didn't conduct the investigation and he probably knows the gravity of him uttering those words.

What he has done is expose Moxon, Arthur  Colin Graves and his dodgy trust as complete slimeballs. Hope the club goes bust after this and Headingley is taken over by the public.

[Kekule]

David Lloyd “sorry for any offence caused” non apology after he’d been mentioned by name…

https://twitter.com/bumblecricket/status/1460650330627186694?s=21

At least it’s an acknowledgment I suppose rather than a flat out denial like others, but it was in October 2020 for fuck’s sake, so there’s no real excuse for it.  That should probably be him done on Sky…another one for the Talksport commentary team next time they cover cricket.

[voodoo ray]

David Lloyd “sorry for any offence caused” non apology after he’d been mentioned by name…

https://twitter.com/bumblecricket/status/1460650330627186694?s=21

At least it’s an acknowledgment I suppose rather than a flat out denial like others, but it was in October 2020 for fuck’s sake, so there’s no real excuse for it.  That should probably be him done on Sky…another one for the Talksport commentary team next time they cover cricket.

he's already on there I think.


I do wonder if he'll be the offered the chance to "retire" from sky sports.

[Mighty_Red]

David Lloyd “sorry for any offence caused” non apology after he’d been mentioned by name…

https://twitter.com/bumblecricket/status/1460650330627186694?s=21

At least it’s an acknowledgment I suppose rather than a flat out denial like others, but it was in October 2020 for fuck’s sake, so there’s no real excuse for it.  That should probably be him done on Sky…another one for the Talksport commentary team next time they cover cricket.

A private conversation with a 3rd party, eh? The apology would be more acceptable if he admitted that he was briefing a journo against Rafiq. This is when you start finding out the other side of people.

Does anyone have a link to the committee hearing? I missed the afternoon and the content is no longer there on the beeb. Looked on iPlayer but its not on there.

[bornandbRED]

So much for David Lloyd being one of the good guys.

[Armchair expert]

I’m not a fan of Kaveh Solhekol on Sky but he’s right regarding the hearing in that Rafiq was having to give his evidence in front of 11 white individuals, with not one black or Asian person being represented on the panel

[Armchair expert]

So much for David Lloyd being one of the good guys.

Don’t think Michael Holding or Mark Butcher will be too impressed on what they’ve heard today

[Nick110581]

His testimony was really hard to listen too as some of the stuff was disgusting.

It’s also disappointing that it wasn’t challenged by his teammates. Ballance was clearly a ringleader but surely someone should have called him out.

[Bullet500]

Azeem Rafiq's full witness statement. https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/7832/documents/81586/default/

Distressing stuff.

[I've been a good boy]

Don't know how cricket works compared to football but I hope some hefty fines and bans are handed out in light of what's come out, and what is about to come out. Disgusting people who deserve every bad thing that falls upon them.

[Ray K]

Johnny Liew is compulsory reading on this topic as always

Azeem Rafiq’s testimony exposes how power works in cricket – and in Britain

In 2016 Azeem Rafiq returned to Yorkshire, the club and the county where – as we now know – he had encountered racist abuse and ritual humiliation since he was a child.  On Tuesday morning in parliament the Conservative MP Damian Green, who was sacked from the government in 2017 for lying about the discovery of pornography on his office computer in 2008, wanted to know why.

Green was by no means the first person to pose this question. Since Rafiq first went public with his experiences last autumn, he has been hounded on social media by members of the public demanding to know why he willingly returned to Yorkshire if the culture was as bad as he claimed, with the implication that it clearly couldn’t have been.

Indeed, speaking on 5 Live earlier that morning, the BBC’s cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew had made a similar insinuation. “Rafiq played at Yorkshire, was made their youngest ever captain,” Agnew argued. “Now, if it had been such a very dreadful experience the first time, why did he go back there? Why didn’t he go and play for somebody else?” Addressing the digital, culture, media and sport select committee, Rafiq gave a simple answer. “Derbyshire didn’t have the finances to offer me a contract,” he said. “I was in a position where putting food on the table was difficult. That’s why I went back.”


A quick thought exercise: how many of the committee questioning Rafiq will ever have been in a position where they were forced to make the invidious choice between returning to a toxic workplace or being unable to feed their family? How many of the Yorkshire management who treated him so shoddily?

How often we think do the MPs, the great and good of Yorkshire, or Agnew or Michael Vaughan or Tom Harrison have had to worry about putting food on the table? In recent weeks Rafiq’s case, and its handling by the institutions that were supposed to protect him, has been the source of a good deal of bafflement and disbelief. The culture and attitudes of the Yorkshire dressing room are described as prehistoric, the men at executive level who stood by and allowed it to flourish derided as dinosaurs resistant to change. We wonder aloud, with incredulity, how this can possibly be allowed to happen in this day and age. “The culture of Yorkshire is stuck in the past,” declared Roger Hutton, the outgoing chairman of Yorkshire. But he was wrong. It’s stuck in the present.

In many ways, it is the present. The treatment of Rafiq was no startling anomaly. It was the very opposite of unforeseeable. It was entirely consistent with the way British society works in 2021, and the way the British establishment has operated for decades. This is a country built on the idea of punching down, of accumulating and retaining personal capital by any means necessary, even if it means trampling on the weakest and the poorest. When Rafiq spoke of his desire to speak on behalf of the “voiceless”, you felt he was articulating a disconnect that stretches well beyond the narrow, grass-stained world of cricket.


Take, by way of example, the supposedly independent report commissioned by Yorkshire last year. According to Hutton, the original terms of the investigation were altered in April this year to prevent any judgment from being made on whether Yorkshire were institutionally racist. Meanwhile, according to Rafiq members of the investigation panel were being treated to Test match hospitality at Headingley. Meanwhile, the Colin Graves Trust – which has the power to bankrupt Yorkshire virtually overnight – was moving to block Hutton’s attempts to remove Yorkshire’s chief executive, Mark Arthur, and the director of cricket, Martyn Moxon, from their positions. Meanwhile, senior figures at Yorkshire were viciously briefing against Rafiq under the cover of anonymity.

Meanwhile, despite having been told to expect the report by the end of 2020, despite making anti-discrimination a central plank of its PR strategy, despite awarding itself £2m in bonuses for broadening the reach of the game, the ECB executive was still sitting on its hands as late as August, when Harrison said it was still appropriate to let Yorkshire conclude their investigation without interference. None of these decisions were taken in a vacuum. They were the product of a culture in which transparency, accountability and morality are entirely optional, a system that will always move to protect its most privileged individuals.

Consequences are for the little people. Humanity is for the comms department.

And so perhaps the greatest gift Rafiq has given us is to see how power really works in this country. Those with status and influence can simply bend the world to their whim, define truth as they see fit, ignore or trounce anyone who threatens their position. They have capital and goodwill, powerful friends to push their case, safety nets upon safety nets. Rafiq had none of this. He was powerless, penniless and alone. He had no corporate sinecure, no Test caps, no column in the Daily Telegraph, no benefit of the doubt. This is why cricket’s establishment felt empowered to drive him to the brink of suicide rather than reform itself.


This particular case occurred in cricket, but frankly it could have happened anywhere: the police, the civil service, the media, an investment bank. A few heads roll, those in power pledge to go on a listening journey, and the world moves on. Green lies in public office and still gets to make our laws. Julian Knight, the committee chairman, gets to criticise the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 and then pontificate about racism on live television in 2021. Accountability is for the little people.

It was possible, while watching the likes of Hutton and Harrison squirm under the committee room lights, to see all this as some sort of vindication or victory for Rafiq, a triumph of truth and justice over obfuscation and malfeasance. In reality, of course, any victory here was purely symbolic.

Rafiq’s cricket career is over. But Gary Ballance still has one, and so do Martyn Moxon and Andrew Gale and Vaughan. Hutton still has his lucrative legal business. Harrison still gets his bonus. The system resets and replenishes. Nature heals.

[voodoo ray]

all of this puts the multi year 'issues' that adil rashid has had with yorkshire contracts/playing time in a slightly different light now too. that may be just coincidental, or it may not be.

[liversaint]

Just heard an interview with Mark Ramprakash on 5live. Pretty disappointing from him, not sure why he agreed to be interviewed if he didn't want to answer questions properly.

He acknowledged things were said in his day (80s and 90s) that were unacceptable now, but he doesn't seem to recognise that this has been unacceptable both publicly and in dressing rooms for a long while now. The allegations are only 10 years old (or less).

It sounds like Ramprakash simply wants to protect the institution that he is part of but the name calling is only one aspect. We can see that the club made every effort to protect their own even when the evidence was damning.
I actually thought he spoke well and gave us many details we were not aware of. I think it's hard for him to give an opinion on whether Yorkshire are institutional racist as he he didn't conduct the investigation and he probably knows the gravity of him uttering those words.

What he has done is expose Moxon, Arthur  Colin Graves and his dodgy trust as complete slimeballs. Hope the club goes bust after this and Headingley is taken over by the public.

Heard this myself. No way does he want to exclude himself from his peers and jeopardise his place on the gravy train.

[Eeyore]

Heard this myself. No way does he want to exclude himself from his peers and jeopardise his place on the gravy train.

In the case of Ramprakash it may be something different.

He probably doesn't see anything wrong with dressing room bullying because he was a huge bully himself.

[Circa1892]

The ringleaders in all of this have been around for donkeys years. Bresnan, Hales etc have played across the world and with hundreds of players in the UK. For them to feel empowered to act like this is gross. Does make you wonder somewhat if the reasons for Hales continued exile from the England squad (which will be even more permenant now) go a bit further than a few failed drugs tests

[Kekule]

Johnny Liew is compulsory reading on this topic as always

Agnew can get in the fucking bin as well then.

A few "treasures" of the cricketing broadcasting world have shown themselves up as the utter c*nts they actually are over this I see.

Time for some to hang up the mics.

[voodoo ray]

The "why didn't he go and play for someone else?" is an odd question, in the way that from some people it'll be a genuine question because they don't understand it. From others it will of course however be more charged.

[Fiasco]

The ringleaders in all of this have been around for donkeys years. Bresnan, Hales etc have played across the world and with hundreds of players in the UK. For them to feel empowered to act like this is gross. Does make you wonder somewhat if the reasons for Hales continued exile from the England squad (which will be even more permenant now) go a bit further than a few failed drugs tests

Perhaps, but Morgan himself was caught up in a row a few months back with Buttler and Jimmy Anderson. They were on twitter seemingly taking the piss out of Indian fans in how they speak/type. So it seemed as though Morgan had a personal gripe with Hales, but he can't be on his high-horse.

[Mighty_Red]

The "why didn't he go and play for someone else?" is an odd question, in the way that from some people it'll be a genuine question because they don't understand it. From others it will of course however be more charged.

while it's a vile question, it's actually something that needs to be answered in order to educate the idiots who ask this with the inference that the victim is in the wrong (i.e. victim blaming).

Rafiq has killed it stone dead and Liew's article backs that up.

It's funny, sometimes these events help out the ones who are at best ignorant and at worst the closet racists.

[Legs]

The ringleaders in all of this have been around for donkeys years. Bresnan, Hales etc have played across the world and with hundreds of players in the UK. For them to feel empowered to act like this is gross. Does make you wonder somewhat if the reasons for Hales continued exile from the England squad (which will be even more permenant now) go a bit further than a few failed drugs tests

Bresnan was part of the group who KP was talking about when he was getting mocked.

KP obviously doesnt help himself either at times but it looks like what he said about bullying was true.

Hales to my knowledge has never shared a dressing room with Rafiq and to be fair Rafiq didnt say he was racist just said what he heard.

Its not the end of it either more will come forward now.

[Crosby Nick]

Yeah, feels like we’re waiting for what revelation comes out next. Nothing/no one would surprise me.

So many layers to this and difficult to put a coherent point down without missing things out or not considering the wider point.

Do the issues at Yorkshire in particular (but probably other counties too) stem from the ‘institutionally racist’ angle that has seen lots of talented English born Asian cricketers not get a fair crack? Does that then harbour environments where they do get picked on or singled out?

The banter/racist angle is so difficult to unpick too. Seems like some players have clearly been racist, others have turned a blind eye or as Rafiq said, not thought anything of it because it was so commonplace or affect them. Not every incident is the same, not every person accused is the same level of guilty.

But then you hear things like what was said to Chambers at Essex which goes so far beyond any “it was just dressing room banter” defences it’s ridiculous.

What a mess. And where on earth does cricket go from here?

[Gerry Attrick]

On an unexpected note, Mickey Arthur is leaving Sri Lanka to become head of cricket at… Derbyshire. Interesting career move.

On racism within cricket, a stat yesterday from an MP on the committee said 30% of cricketers in youth programmes are British Asians but 4% of pros are British Asians. Simply cannot be explained away by coincidences and other factors.

[Red-Soldier]

Shocked to hear that English cricket is institutionally racist.