Tears, truths and trauma as Azeem relives his nightmare
DAY OF RECKONING ARRIVES AT LAST…
BY THE time he was finished, Azeem Rafiq should have been able to raise his bat to those watching and leave the stage to generous applause.
That would have been fitting for the greatest innings that Rafiq has played in his career to date, exposing in great detail the bare-faced racism and discrimination he has had to suffer during two spells at Yorkshire County Cricket Club.
Unlike most great knocks, though, his time in the middle of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport select committee hearing lasted for more than an hour and a half and came with a need to pause proceedings for five minutes because Rafiq had broken down in tears. He wasn’t the only one.
Whether it was in his early comments about being referred to as a “P***” and “elephant washer” or during the later stages when he talked about being “ripped to shreds” by director of cricket Martyn Moxon just hours after discovering his son had been stillborn, the hurt was palpable.
It was a harrowing and difficult thing to see the pain etched in Rafiq’s face and listen to the raw honesty and emotion that he spoke with from start to finish.
And while there will be some who still question Rafiq’s version of events, like Michael Vaughan, it was a powerful testimony that did not require any notes or assistance. But then who needs notes to tell the truth?
The less-than-diverse committee provided Rafiq with the opportunity he has longed for, to tell his truth under Parliamentary privilege, without fear of legal repercussions and without those in power at Yorkshire able to obfuscate, discredit or nullify what he had to say.
He had already exhausted all the official channels as a player, only to discover that after highlighting the bullying treatment from players such as former England all-rounder Tim Bresnan or current club coach Andrew Gale, life at Yorkshire would get harder.
“I first raised it as bullying in 2017,” he said. “I knew there was potentially going to be real trouble. Six or seven players made a complaint about Tim Bresnan that year
but I was the only one that got the repercussions of that and I was the only person of colour.”
It is not as though things had been easy to begin with for Rafiq, who revealed he had red wine forcibly poured down his throat as a 15-year-old making his way in the game.
He had tried to fit in with the culture at Yorkshire – and that meant drinking alcohol, which goes against his Islamic faith. But the moment he tried to stop and be himself, he found he was even more of an outsider than before. Rafiq was in no doubt that racism had cost him his career, even if ECB chief executive Tom Harrison later refused to agree that Yorkshire are institutionally racist.
For 15 months, Yorkshire have tried to discredit Rafiq. This was a day of reckoning for that and more, with Moxon and former chief executive Mark Arthur in the firing line.
And yet there was a brief moment where some light was let into the darkness,
That’s all I wanted – an acceptance and an apology
when Rafiq talked about former England fast bowler Matthew Hoggard, who he says dubbed him ‘Raffa the Kaffir”.
“I took a call from Matthew Hoggard and he basically said, ‘I didn’t realise, I’m really sorry if some of the comments made you feel the way you described’,” said Rafiq.
“I was like, ‘Mate, thank you, really appreciate it’. Really, that’s all I wanted – an acceptance, an apology.”
It really should be the first of many.