‘I was close to committing suicide’

How county’s youngest captain ended up at war with Headingley chiefs over allegations of racist abuse

Q Who is Azeem Rafiq?

A Born in Pakistan but raised in Barnsley, the off-spinning all-rounder, 30, was a regular in national age-group sides before being named England Under-19s captain.

In 2012 he became Yorkshire’s youngest captain at 21, and first captain of Asian origin, when he took charge in Twenty20 matches. He briefly worked his way into the side in red-ball cricket, but failed to cement his County Championship place.

Released in 2014, he spent two years playing league cricket before Yorkshire re-signed him. He was again a key component of their T20 side, but played his last match for the county in 2018 and has been without a first-class county since.

Q What is Rafiq’s case against Yorkshire?

Two years after leaving Yorkshire,

Rafiq made a series of claims last September about racist abuse he suffered while at the county. He alleged that “institutional racism” at the club was “worse than it’s ever been” and that it had ignored reports of racist behaviour.

“I know how close I was to committing suicide during my time at Yorkshire,” he told Espncricinfo. “I was dreading going to work. I was in pain every day.”

Yorkshire commissioned an investigation into his claims. Three months later, Rafiq filed a legal claim under the Equality Act, alleging direct discrimination and harassment on the grounds of race, as well as victimisation and detriment as a result of his efforts to address racism at the club.

Q

Why has it emerged again this week?

A Almost a year after Rafiq went

public with his claims, he spoke out again when it emerged Yorkshire had received the investigation report last week, but were yet to make its contents public.

“It’s a sham,” Rafiq told Espncricinfo on Wednesday. “We’ve waited a year for this report and they are still trying to bury it.

“The ECB’S own anti-discrimination code states that any alleged breach must be investigated and dealt with in a ‘timely’ fashion. Well, it’s been more than a year and no one has been held accountable.”

His comments prompted the England and Wales Cricket Board to tell Yorkshire it was looking forward to receiving a “copy of the report promptly”.

Yesterday, Yorkshire confirmed the investigation had concluded that Rafiq was the victim of “inappropriate behaviour”. The club offered their “profound apologies” and promised the full report would be published “within weeks”.

Q

What other issues is English cricket dealing with?

A Three months before Rafiq went public with his allegations last year, former England batsman Michael Carberry claimed “cricket is rife with racism” and that “the people running the game don’t care about black people”.

At the same time,

The Telegraph conducted an investigation into the decline in the number of black cricketers in England and the paucity of black coaches.

Mark Alleyne, one of only three black British head coaches ever to take charge of an English first-class team, said “the numbers are disgusting”.

Lonsdale Skinner, chairman of the African Caribbean Cricket Association and former Surrey player, said black players had been “deliberately excluded” by English cricket since the mid-1990s.

Last November, former umpires John Holder and Ismail Dawood called for an independent inquiry into the lack of non-white officials in the English game. No non-white umpires have been appointed to the first-class list since 1992. Holder and Dawood later decided to sue the ECB under the Equality Act.