BALLANCE MUST BE BANNED ...BUT NOT ABANDONED
YORKSHIRE BATSMAN NEEDS EDUCATING OVER INEXCUSABLE LANGUAGE
IT HAD to come out. there was no way Gary Ballance could remain anonymous once it emerged that a ‘current senior Yorkshire player’ had repeatedly used the word ‘P**i’ to describe his team-mate azeem Rafiq in what has been risibly passed off as ‘banter’. It is far, far too serious for his identity to have been protected any longer.
this is the tipping point for the whole sorry mess that has engulfed Yorkshire, all of it self-inflicted, since Rafiq claimed last year he had been racially abused in two spells playing for his home county. Everything will come tumbling out now.
Really, it is just the start. Sportsmail understands there are bigger names than the Zimbabweborn former England batsman implicated in the sorry excuse for an ‘independent’ report commissioned by Yorkshire into Rafiq’s allegations.
and Rafiq will have little hesitation in naming them when he gives evidence to the department for digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee on November 16.
any former player or coach who has been hiding behind lawyers for the past year or so in anticipation of being implicated will be powerless to stop him. Quite right too. Yorkshire are no strangers to crisis over the years but this is the biggest yet. heads must roll, as health secretary Sajid Javid put it, for not only the failure in their duty of care towards an employee but also for their attempt to cover up their ‘crimes’ ever since. and it is not hyperbole to use that word either.
Principal among those who surely cannot survive this affair now are chief executive Mark arthur and director of cricket Martyn Moxon, and no justification they can muster to the dCMS when they also provide evidence should be enough to spare them.
the suggestion, meanwhile, that former Yorkshire and ECB chair Colin Graves will somehow ride to the rescue by replacing current chair Roger hutton is risible too. he was at the helm of the club when some of the abuse of Rafiq took place, for goodness sake.
Equally, there are also a number of high-profile former and current Yorkshire players and coaches who are completely exonerated by the report. their names need to be made public too because otherwise the rumour mill will judge them guilty by association.
the most astonishing aspect of the revelations about Ballance, first made in a report by ESPNcricinfo, is that the investigating panel decided ‘P**i’ was acceptable banter and yet ‘Zimbo’ was offensive. If it wasn’t so shocking it would be laughable.
there is no doubt how offensive it is to label anyone a ‘P**i’. It was offensive when I first heard that word used in the 1970s to immigrant pupils in an East London school and it certainly has not become any more acceptable in the 40-odd years since.
‘Zimbo’, by contrast, is widely used to describe anyone from Zimbabwe and is, as far as I’m aware, considered by those from the country to be as harmless as ‘aussie, Kiwi or Pom’. and if a diverse panel do not know the difference then they are unfit to be part of such an important inquiry.
Ballance has to be punished. despite admitting last night that he regrets the language he used towards Rafiq — and he seemed genuinely contrite — he should be suspended for at least part of next season in a first step by Yorkshire to put right their many wrongs. But he also needs help and a player who in recent years has suffered mental health issues must not be abandoned by his employers nor the game. he needs to be educated.
But whatever punishment Ballance receives should pale into insignificance compared to what should face Yorkshire when all the damning details come out, as they assuredly will when Rafiq faces MPs complete with parliamentary privilege. the ECB, who have not covered themselves in glory in recent times, have to act decisively. It is impossible, for instance, to see how headingley can stage England’s test against New Zealand next year nor the ashes test they have been awarded in 2023. the ECB have a duty to strip Yorkshire — whose sponsors are leaving in droves — of those games. and that’s just for starters.
Now the ECB have finally seen the full report they must go through with former chair Ian Watmore’s pledge to charge the county with bringing the game into disrepute. and ensure lessons really are learned by a game craving greater diversity.
Meanwhile, the justice Rafiq has been seeking just moved a big step closer. But not until it is all out in the open, as it should be on November 16, can the scandal be fully addressed. and Yorkshire can then be properly dealt with for the whole shameful episode.