English cricket is full of racism, my life became “hell”, Rafiq says

LONDON, Nov 16 (Reuters) – Former Yorkshire cricketer Azeem Rafiq burst into tears on Tuesday after he told a British parliamentary committee of “inhumane” treatment at a cricket club and described the sport in England as topping up racism.

During the testimony, which lasted more than an hour, Rafiq, 30, a former Pakistani-born captain in England under the age of 19, lists the culture of racism that is widespread in Yorkshire.

Rafiq said he and other players from Asian backgrounds were subjected to racist slander, such as “You sit there a lot” and were called “Pak” and “elephant washers.”

“At times, I felt isolated, humiliated,” he said in his emotional testimony to Parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) panel.

The scandal has shaken English sports, paid for Yorkshire sponsors and the right to host the English international match, seen the club’s top team resign and mingled with former England captain Michael Vaughan and current England skipper Joe Root.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson thanked Rafiq for his “brave testimony” and said on Twitter that there was no excuse for racism in any society.

“We expect @EnglandCricket and @YorkshireCCC to take immediate action in response to these allegations,” Johnson said.

Rafiq, a Muslim off-spin bowler who played in Yorkshire from 2008 to 2014 and again from 2016 to 201, said red wine was poured down his throat at the age of 15 and talked about Asian players being selected for mistakes while they were. fasting.

Rafiq broke when he told how cricket manager Martyn Moxon had “ripped pieces from me” at a meeting the day he returned to the club in 2018 when his baby boy was born dead.

“Some of the club’s staff were inhumane,” Rafiq said. “They weren’t really bothered by the fact that I was in training one day and I’m being called to not beat my heart.”

He also said the racism he experienced in Yorkshire had “no doubt” recurred across the country, and said Britain’s Asian representation in professional games had fallen by 40 per cent since 2010.

He said at the hearing that he would not want his son “close to cricket” and that players from other provinces had contacted him with similar experiences.

Roger Hutton, the former president of Yorkshire, who resigned because Yorkshire did not punish anyone in response to the club’s report on Rafiq’s allegations, said the ECB should have conducted an investigation.

“It would have been much better if they had done it. This was a disclosure requirement from 2007-2018 against the club’s leadership,” Hutton said at the hearing.

ECB President Tom Harrison said the first-class game had difficulty waking up to diversity issues.

“If we’re not in an emergency, we’ll approach it,” he said.

TOXIC AIR

Rafiq said there was a toxic atmosphere in Yorkshire under Captain Gary Ballance, Vice Captain Tim Bresnan, head coach Andrew Gale and Moxon, and said continued racist exploitation gave him suicidal thoughts.

Rafiq recalled his evening on the pre-2017 tour: “We were there and Gary Ballance walks over to him and says, ‘Why are you talking to him? You know he’s Paki. This happened in front of teammates. It happened in front of the coaching staff.’

Rafiq said Ballance used the name “Kevin” as a derogatory term to describe all the colorful players and that the term was “an open secret in the English locker room”.

In a statement on November 4, Ballance, who played 23 tests for the England national team, admitted to using racial slander and said he deeply regretted some of the language he used when he was younger. Read more

Yorkshire said last week that Moxon was absent from work due to a stress-related illness, while Gale had been arrested for a suspected anti-Semitic tweet he sent out in 2010.

Reuters has not received any comments.

Rafiq said the extent of racism in English professional cricket was an open secret, but the lives of the players were made “hell” if they talked.

Some of the biggest names in English cricket have been pulled into controversy.

Rafiq says former England captain Vaughan told him and two other players of Asian descent that there were “too many of you, we have to do something about it” before the 2009 match. Vaughan vehemently denies the charge.

Rafiq said the current England captain Root, a Yorkshire player, was a good man who “has never used racist language”. But the fact that Root didn’t remember hearing racist language talked a lot about the culture of the club.

Reporting: Rohith Nair in Bengaluru and Martyn Herman in London; Edited by Angus MacSwan / Jon Boyle / Ken Ferris

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