Learn lessons over Rafiq
FROM thousands of miles away, it’s been pretty heart-breaking to see what has transpired at my old club Yorkshire.
Everyone now acknowledges that things could have been handled better when Azeem Rafiq first raised all those issues.
From the outside, it appeared that some people had a problem with him as an individual instead of the club dealing properly with the concerns that he had raised.
I was interviewed during the investigation process and there was nothing that I could recall from my time as first-team coach at the club from 2012 to 2016 that would have constituted racism.
I remember a couple of incidents when Azeem was really battling with his game, and on one he was in tears in the viewing area of the nets at Headingley.
I checked in with him to see if he was OK, and he said he was struggling.
I had watched him train earlier and he was bowling head high full tosses, double-bouncers and you could see he was pretty low.
Whether it was just my naivety, I thought it was purely about his bowling and that’s why I reached out to him.
It transpired that in part he had been referencing the racism stuff but I just went off what I witnessed. Clearly lessons have to be learned from all this and there should be no place for racism within our sport or in society.