Bowl out the racists

Rafiq’s bravery reveals club as cesspit of hate

PROBABLY the one highlight of that washout of a horror show of a summer was getting a ticket for the fourth Test at the Oval.

My mate was on the phone on the Sunday as we were watching wickets fall, instructing me to pay “whatever it takes” to get Monday tickets – which is an easy thing to say when you have no intention of paying up.

But, you know, it’s worth it. Walking to the Oval in the Monday morning sun, first beer just after 11am, a day’s play in front of you. I love that game, I really do. Always have.

It’s always amazed me that you can have a crowd full of people who are majority drunk and yet well-behaved. In all the games I’ve been to, I’ve never seen any trouble, never seen anything even approaching racism.

Underbelly

But I realise now I was looking in the wrong place. The racism wasn’t in the stands – it was on the pitch, in the corridors, in the executive boxes.

What we’re seeing at Yorkshire – and this is the tip of the iceberg, believe me – is the horrible, sordid underbelly of the game being dragged into the light.

Of course it’s racist. I admit my ignorance during all the time I’ve followed the game, I’d not paid attention to what has been going on.

How could I have missed it? Why didn’t I see? A combination of privilege, I suppose, and a lack of empathy that is causing me sleepless nights.

It has taken the fine work of people like Sir Michael Holding to finally drive home the inequality at the heart of the game. It is institutionally racist and Yorkshire has some serious questions to answer.

The ECB – useless – has already acted, only a few years too late, and stripped Headingley of Test status.

The head of the DCMS committee, Julian Knight, says this is the short, sharp shock the county needs to change its ways.

He is woefully wrong. It does not need a short, sharp shock. This is a club that resisted all attempts at change and only within living memory had its first overseas player.

It had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th century but only got as far as the 1950s, where it has remained ever since. It is a rotten, retrograde institution.

It is the bravery of Azeem Rafiq, one of the players who has suffered at the hands of this outfit, that has exposed the truth. Mr Rafiq was reduced to tears and even considered taking his own life due to the “banter” – as the club described it – that he was subjected to.

He has kept pushing for his story to be told. Now it will be.

The whole sorry thing is going to be displayed in Parliament later this month. The – now gone – chief executive is going to spill the lot. Other characters involved in the hierarchy are going to have to cough up. This is going to finish careers in cricket, administration, broadcasting, governance, everywhere. Good.

If there were justice, Mr Rafiq would be the Sports Personality of the Year, but there isn’t justice. We’ll see something though, beginning in Parliament. Hopefully a sea-change in the sport.

There are decades-worth of injustice to put right and I hope to God they do it – whatever it takes.

Knock down Headingley if needs be. Make them grovel. I wouldn’t just like it – I’d love it.