Rafiq may now be part of the problem, but he still remains a victim

It is a flawed logic that suggests Azeem Rafiq’s exposure as the author of anti-semitic text messages diminishes the power of his testimony on racist abuse in cricket. Not that this will deter attempts to paint him as an unreliable narrator and a hypocrite, with Nigel Farage arguing that he is guilty of the “worst double standards possible” after the emergence of his appalling slurs against Jewish people when he was 19.

But in this complex culture war, two things can be true at once. The first is that Rafiq’s language in 2011 was utterly indefensible, his attempted joke about former Derbyshire player Atif Sheikh being reluctant to pay for a meal “because he is a Jew” a reassertion of one of the oldest and ugliest anti-semitic tropes of all.

The second is that these grim details about Rafiq’s past only add to our understanding of the endemic prejudice that has been allowed to fester across the English game. Far from detracting from the crisis that he spelt out before the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s select committee, it only magnifies the scale of the task ahead.

This is not about finding excuses for Rafiq. Appeals for clemency, based on the fact the texts were sent 10 years ago and that he has since acknowledged his “shame”, are difficult to accept. After all, these were not seen as sufficient mitigations in the case of Ollie Robinson.

He was roundly condemned in June after being shown to have posted such racist tweets as: “My new Muslim friend is the bomb.” That these remarks were at least eight years old, and that he offered a grovelling apology the same day, did not stop retired England opener Michael Carberry from saying that Robinson should never play for his country again.

There is one important difference, though, between the cases. Robinson still has a Test career and will be playing in the Ashes in three weeks. Rafiq’s playing days are over, his experiences of abuse at Yorkshire poisoning his love of cricket so deeply that he does not want his children to follow him into the sport. This ordeal cannot be downplayed even in light of his previous antisemitic comments. Indeed, it points to an uncomfortable truth in this gruesome saga: that racism in English cricket is so rife, having gone unchecked for so long, that it is possible to be both perpetrator and victim.

It is popular, in these febrile times, to hound somebody out of professional existence for historical misdeeds. But digging for dirt in people’s past lives is self-defeating. Rafiq’s unforgivable remarks do not temper the pain of team-mates calling him “P---”, or negate the crucial service he has performed in bringing institutional racism at Yorkshire to light.

Similarly, the intolerance of which he was guilty at 19 should not define the person he is at 30. This same benefit of the doubt was granted to Robinson, and it needs extending to Rafiq, too. Marie van der Zyl, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, has accepted his apology, her response conveying a valuable lesson. “Azeem Rafiq has suffered terribly at the hands of racists in cricket, so he will well understand the hurt this exchange will cause to Jews who have supported him,” she said.

Rafiq’s ordeal cannot be downplayed, even in light of his previous anti-semitic comments

“We have no reason to believe he is not completely sincere.”

Rafiq has evidently done much to improve his character. One of his most telling contributions to the DCMS hearing was to reinforce the significance of education if cricket is to put its house in order. The lack of even the most basic education on race unites so much of the hideous behaviour by young players.

It is central to Rafiq’s story of how, as a 15-year-old Muslim, he had red wine poured down his throat in a team car. It is the reason why Alex Hales – already forced to deny that he called his black dog “Kevin”, copying a racist label allegedly used by Gary Ballance – was pictured in blackface at a party in 2009. It is why Jack Brooks kept referring to Cheteshwar Pujara as “Steve”, despite his Indian teammate’s insistence that he did not like the name. And it is why Rafiq, the key whistleblower, imagined as a teenager that anti-semitism was permissible. The efforts to discredit him on this basis are obscuring the key point here: that cricket’s moment of enlightenment cannot come a moment too soon.