Racism, cricket and the problem with ancient allegations

Last week, the former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan revealed that he’d been accused by another cricketer — Azeem Rafiq — of having said something racist to him and two other Asian players 12 years ago. According to Rafiq, when Vaughan was playing for Yorkshire in 2009 he said to the three as they walked out on to the field together to face Nottinghamshire that there were ‘too many of you lot, we need to do something about it’.

Vaughan categorically denies saying this and it’s difficult to evaluate the veracity of the accusation because Rafiq hasn’t made it against him publicly. Rather, he named Vaughan behind closed doors while giving evidence to an independent panel set up by Yorkshire Country Cricket Club in which he also accused other players of making similar remarks.

The internal investigation was launched after Rafiq gave interviews to Wisden and other outlets last year saying that ‘institutional racism’ at the club was worse ‘than it’s ever been’ and had caused him so much pain during his Yorkshire career that he came close to committing suicide.