AZEEM RAFIQ

always said his complaints of racism inside Yorkshire were not about individuals yet increasingly that point has been lost. the thrust of the debate is now whether the BBC were beastly to Michael Vaughan, rather than whether one of our greatest counties, and the wider game, turned a blind eye to institutional racism. Many of Vaughan’s teammates, and those he captained, have come to his defence. ‘A Piers Morgan-like twitter personality,’ was how Mark Butcher described him. ‘he can make himself a bit of a plonker on there,’ he added. ‘But I’ve played with him and against him for the best part of 15 years and he’s not a racist.’ Most, including rafiq, agree that Vaughan does not deserve to have his career ended over what may have been a very misjudged attempt at the dreaded banter more than a decade ago. the problem is that by making this about individuals, it risks becoming another unsolvable round of he said, she said. Monty Panesar, and others, have talked about process but what is that? rafiq, and two others, said Vaughan (left) made a racially insensitive remark, the rest did not hear it or remember, and Vaughan denies it. Get to the bottom of that with process. More finite are the numbers that show Asian participation in grassroots cricket and how few break into the professional game. that should be the focus. Vaughan has learned a lesson and is better informed about what rafiq faced. from there, we must address the wider issues.