The likely return of Colin Graves as Yorkshire chairman exposes a failing game. It has been accelerated by bad financial management, weak governance and leadership and a complete moral failure on the part of those running the sport in this country and those whose money keeps it going. Maybe there is still time to act, still time to show some backbone, but it’s running out fast.
In August 2020, I spoke in public for the first time about my experiences at Yorkshire. The 40 months since then have been difficult for me and for the game, and most painful of all is the fact that it looks like we have ended right back where we started. Nothing has changed. All we have had are empty words and broken promises.
I cast my mind back to November 2021, when under intense political pressure the England and Wales Cricket Board suspended Yorkshire from hosting international cricket because of its slow and substandard response to my testimony. In the hours that followed dozens of companies ended their associations with the club. Nike, Yorkshire Tea, Tetley’s Brewery and Harrogate Water were all among the companies who cancelled sponsorships.
Now a man who has always seemed to minimise the club’s problems, a man who last June went on television and dismissed racism as “banter”, a man whose family trust was described as a “roadblock” to reform, is likely to return to Headingley as chairman. So where is the outcry now? Where are the interventions?
My question now is for Yorkshire’s current sponsors, major companies such as Uber Eats, Vertu Motors, NIC Services Group, Al-Murad Tiles, C&C Insurance and Sodexo, and for their kit suppliers, Kukri. Does Colin Graves reflect your values? Is it acceptable to describe racism as banter?
Often companies only seem to act when the light is shone on them. Well, make no mistake, that light is going to shine. Sponsors found their moral compass before, and they need to find it again, because any organisation supporting this is complicit in it. There is still time for them to act, to leave now and stop Yorkshire stepping back in time and undoing what progress they have made in the past three years.
As for the ECB, the governing body’s anti-racism stance has been exposed as nothing but words. Last week, I read an interview with their chair, Richard Thompson, who when asked about the report of the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket said he thought his organisation had “navigated that well”. That tells you something about the ECB’s attitude: it is not about action, it is about perception.
All I have seen is self-protection, PR plans, and kicking the can down the road. There is no consistency there, which you would expect if its actions were led by values rather than reputation management: the ECB criticised Graves when he described racism as banter, but did nothing when Ian Botham, current chairman of Durham, decided to attack the ICEC report as “a nonsense” and “a complete and utter waste of money”. What message does that send to young players from ethnic minorities?
The ECB says it has “a zero-tolerance stance to any form of discrimination”, but now shrugs its shoulders as Graves remains in the driving seat to take charge of one of the biggest and most historic counties in the game. They are great at producing promises and action plans but not so good at action, and the impression is that those who hold the keys to change are not interested in making it happen.
I do not believe the situation was out of their control. We know they loaned Yorkshire a six-figure sum towards the end of last year and if keeping Graves out and Yorkshire afloat was going to mean them helping out further that is what they should have done. Zero tolerance means zero tolerance, not zero tolerance until it becomes too expensive.
Not that Yorkshire didn’t have other options. Just before Christmas, Lord Mann, the former MP for Bassetlaw and now a member of the House of Lords, revealed he had offered to connect Yorkshire’s board with three people who could have helped them to finance the club, but they refused to even talk to them. The idea that Graves has been forced upon the club, that they had no other option, is ridiculous. I was told in February 2023 that plans were already being made for him to make a comeback. The way his return is being presented is so disingenuous it’s quite scary.
I still believe that everyone deserves a second chance. If Graves wants to lead the club and the game in a positive direction he can’t just say the right things, he needs to do the right things – not just words, but action. He has to show he has accepted what has happened in the past, and is ready to take substantial action and offer clear direction now and when difficult decisions are necessary in the future. It is fair to say there has been no sign of any of this yet.
Since the Cricket Discipline Commission hearings I have tried to rebuild my life and move forward. I’m committed to this fight but I don’t just want to be an anti-racism campaigner, a name that crops up whenever racism is an issue in cricket. It has been impossible to leave it behind. It has been upsetting to watch from afar how little effort has gone into making good on all the promises made.
I’m still in contact with people at the club, good people who want change and who are frustrated with what is going on. Parents get in touch with me, people who have been discriminated against and wronged and who want help and support. So the battle continues. There are a lot of questions still to be asked, and I’m determined to ask them.
