'Colin Graves' return to cricket shows sport is failing fight against racism'
We are into 2024 and yet cricket is still failing its fight to be more inclusive.
Failing its fight against racism and failing in its fight against discrimination. The return of Colin Graves to Yorkshire absolutely underlines that.
For the avoidance of any doubt, here's a reminder of Graves' response to Sky Sports News when he was asked whether racism allegations had been raised to him when he was chairman of Yorkshire between 2012 and 2015.
“I think there have been odd occasions where words have been said that people may regret afterwards," he said “I don’t think it was done on a racist, savage basis. I think there was a lot of – I know people don’t like the word banter – but I think there could have been a lot of banter in there about it, and I know people don’t like that.
“But when you play cricket and you’re part of cricket teams, and you’re in cricket dressing rooms, that’s what happened in the past. But the world has changed, society has changed, it’s not acceptable. I understand that, I accept it, full stop.”
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Given what we now know, those remarks are staggering, shameful and symbolic of the institutional issues players are still having to cope with. When the Independent Commission for Equality in cricket (ICEC) report was published last year, detailing racism, sexism, classism and elitism in the sport.
It led many to believe we'd reached a point where - finally - cricket’s stakeholders and leaders had accepted the failings of the past. When the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) insisted, as the report came out in September, that it wants "to change the game” lots of people believed them.
I was sceptical and hesitant myself and it looks as though I was right to be. The English Cricket Board's (ECB) response, three months later, lacked detail and was poor in relation to the magnitude of what we were actually dealing with.
Azeem Rafiq took his former team-mates to court over discrimination he received at Yorkshire (JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP via Getty Images)The accountability is non-existent. Gratitude and grandstanding, yes. Apologies, words, a lot of tick boxing and gaslighting, yes. But very little action to substantially and effectively eradicate a problem still affecting the lives of players in dressing rooms across the UK.
The appointment of an independent regulator, recently announced by the ECB was at best, misleading and at worst cynical. It will be ECB employees running the department. It will be funded by the ECB and the head of the board has been appointed by - you guessed it - the ECB.
I’m not sure how that is independent but maybe someone from the ECB could tell us. The lack of transparency around that has been, quite honestly, frustrating and made me incredibly angry as well.
More questions need to be asked because there seems to be too much of a widespread acceptance of what’s going on. Also, what’s with this fear of some sections of our media using words such as racism in relation to this issue?
The data and the information is there. The denial underlines the fear that a culture exists within which there is an unwillingness to confront the problem. Look, for example, at the Essex situation: Like Yorkshire, why have the players not yet received the full report around its handling of the issues around racism?
The Yorkshire scandal threw cricket's racism problem into the spotlight (Ray Lawrence/TGS Photo/REX/Shutterstock)It was something they were charged and sanctioned for - so why is Essex being allowed to drag their heels over sharing the subsequent report with the victims? In my opinion, the game is looking the other way as people continue to be discriminated against and abused.
I'm still getting phone calls from parents who have tried to raise issues and have come up against a system which has either looked to shut them down or gaslight them. Those parents are being patronised by leaders who just would rather kick the can down the road and suggest they are sensitive and over-thinking things, than actually do anything.
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It is all about choices. Are we going to continue pursuing multi-year contracts for the already well-paid players over making the game more accessible? Or are we going to deal with the racism crisis tearing cricket apart.
As we look ahead to the select committee appearances of the ICEC and the ECB next month when the focus will be on the ICEC - who have been absolutely outstanding - to be brutally honest about the actual state of the game, will they be?
Frankly, I expect nothing from ECB but big numbers, big commitments, big talk and also a lot of data suggesting how great the ECB has been. I expect the truth - the real truth - to be missing. It always is in cricket.
This sport cannot keep looking the other way and believing things will be fine - that’s how we ended up here in the first place. Serious questions must be asked, continually, of the new leadership. Of Richard Gould and Richard Thompson - the ECB's chief executive and chair respectively, who are coming up to a year of their partnership being reunited.
We need to start judging them on their actions. The change that they are talking about appears to be nothing but lip service so far. That must end. No more box ticking, no more gaslighting, no more PR smoke and mirrors, and instead real solutions. Players' careers depend on it. The credibility of cricket in this country even more so.
ECB cricket and the Professional Cricketers Association need to take the lead and guide players into a new, more positive era. I’m not holding my breath, though.
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