There has been criticism of Lord Botham for not reading the “bombshell ICEC report” – with one of its “Equity Commissioner” authors writing that “Botham’s comments also, regrettably, give licence to others to essentially ignore the report. The message is: relax folks, no need to read on, no need to worry about the evidence, no need to confront the challenge.”
The trouble is that there really was ‘no need to read on’. One only had to look at the people compiling the report to know – without the slightest doubt – what the report would find.
Ask a man whose business is fitting damp courses to survey your house and guess what …. he’ll find damp that needs fixing.
Ask an “Equity commissioner” and guess what, …. he’ll uncover inequity.
We’ve already seen how this goes – the absolutely scandalous treatment of Michael Vaughan was the most obvious – but it happens all the time, in almost every area of modern life.
Vaughan and others in the frame denied the charges levelled against them, yet faced sanction, criticism and a substantial loss of earnings.
They were shamed in the media as racists and had no right of reply or opportunity to clear their names.
Azeem Rafiq was afforded the chance to speak – under parliamentary privilege – and his every word was believed without challenge. He was also awarded very substantial payments from Yorkshire CC as recompense for his suffering(??)
Yet, of all the many people involved in this sorry tale, there was only one PROVEN racist.
Step forward …… Azeem Rafiq.
And yet supposedly Botham is disrespectful for not hanging on every word of the ICEC report.
If there are problems in Cricket that need addressing I would suggest that Equity Commissioners are the last people you’d want to turn to for solutions.

Cricket is very close to.my heart. It was devastating (in a sporting sense) that what promised to be a great Ashes was ruined by two days of Manchester rain. Our hopes of regaining the urn disappeared with the view of the Pennines, which disappear from view when the weather sets in, in these parts.

My first trips to Old Trafford in the early 1970s were to marvel at the exploits of West Indian Clive Lloyd (soon to become the captain of possibly the greatest cricket team in the history of the game) and Farouk Engineer, the Indian wicketkeeper/batsman. Racism? Elitism? Not in this Lancashire team, which included Jack Simmons and Harry Pilling, as working-class as they come. The talent and spirit of the team won trophies consistently.

So the article resonates, because even as a young teenager, i knew that my team was an exception. The story of CLR James could be told many times over, but comes to prominence due to his other, non-cricketing talents.

Ben Stokes, backed by Brendan McCullum, is indeed transforming the way test cricket is not only played, but perceived. Just a few short years ago he was banned from a tour of Australia after bring involved in a brawl outside a nightclub. When the case came to court, it transpired he was defending two homosexual young men who were being threatened by thugs. It was an act of bravery. He carries that spirit into his captaincy. Whilst the England team at Lord’s was entirely white, that was pretty much an exception to the norm and due to injuries to players such as Jofra Archer rather than any other factor. Moeen Ali, restored to the team from retirement, is an icon of English cricket of Pakistani heritage.

Does racism and class privilege still exist in the game? In about the same proportion that it exists outside the game. It’s just not cricket.

Only Bairstow himself had tried pulling the same stunt two days earlier with the Australian batsman Marnus Labuschagne

Labuschagne was batting out of his crease. Bairstow was dozily assuming the over was complete after the umpire started handing the bowler his glasses back. Bairstow probably deserved his fate, but the two incidents are not comparable.

As a now-declining league cricketer of 30+ years’ standing, I found this article very interesting and doubtless well-meaning. I can absolutely agree with the overall premise, and while I have little in common with CLR James’ political views, that shouldn’t detract from the value of his works on cricket.

I’d like to give my personal take on the subject of racism in cricket in the UK. As stated above I’ve played league cricket for many years in the North West of England, in an area where there is a high concentration of black and Asian cricketers. As well as some playing at my club, we have also regularly employed Pakistani, Indian and Sri Lankan professional players at my club. I have personally housed a Sri Lankan player for 3 seasons and currently have a black South African living with me – and I have done so for free. So I have to say that when this report was released, one of the first feelings was one of anger – I am among the targets of this report, this report is accusing me of being racist.

Leaving base emotions aside, my overriding conclusion is that this report drew its conclusion first and then tried to gather the evidence to fit the conclusion. There was one specific instance cited which I know about very well, because it happened in a different part of our town, and I know the players involved. Basically a local lad had told a player of Asian descent to (I paraphrase) go back where he came from. Doubtless an awful thing to say, doubtless a racist thing to say – but I also know that this guy was chucked out of his club within 24 hours of it happening and hasn’t to my knowledge played cricket since, I doubt he would be welcome. I’ve not heard a single person say (even unguardedly) that the sanctions on the offender were harsh, nobody has sought to defend him. His club has apologised. The report’s authors use this as an example of why the game of cricket is inherently racist; I would argue the exact opposite – in cricket, as in life, racism exists, but the reaction to it is one of universal disgust. Nobody accepts it when it does happen.

Am I saying that there is no racism at all within cricket? No, not at all. I’ve heard racist things being said, including by the odd teammate over the years. Not defending any of that, but it’s a massive stretch to say that cricket is inherently racist. Look at the participation in the game among minority groups – far higher than the population as a whole. Yes, I get that some of this comes from the love of the game in certain parts of the world but would such a disproportionately high proportion participate in mainstream UK league and recreational cricket if it was such a cesspit of racism.

Sorry, I just don’t buy it, the suggestion does offend me. Is it elitist at the top level? Hell yes, but I’ve written far too much already so that’ll have to be a conversation for another day.

I didn’t like the article. It offered no evidence for the racism it cited apart from the report. Racism is cited for self interested reasons sometimes. I suspect there was male banter in the Yorkshire team. Was it racism? Was it shocking? Were the accusations well founded or just self interested? I would want more evidence than the article offered.
I heard an interview about a city in France. The interviewee was told not to go to a certain cafe because it was full of white racists. He went along and found blacks, Arabs and whites in equal number all bantering and getting along well including sharing off colour or racist jokes. They were all men and mostly working class. This is how men relate to each other from this class. Perhaps the nice middle class investigators and journalists don’t get this.

You omitted to to mention that Azeem Rafiq had “left the country “ because he had been revealed to be a vile antisemite. “Hoist on his own petard” as the great Bard would say.

Mention of Harold**Larwood might also have been an opportunity to mention that he and Douglas Jardine* nearly caused the whinging Australians to declare UDI.

Still mustn’t grumble, the Eton and Harrow match continues, despite some ‘woke’ whining.

(*Winchester and New College.)

(** Thanks to Philip Gerrans for the correction.)

Oh please. The ICEC report wants equal pay for women in cricket, appointment of an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion officer, a “new, independent regulatory body,” an end to Eton-Harrow games at Lords, an overall of school cricket and “talent pathways.”
Did I mention that I think that the entire educated class should be sent to Antarctica to research climate change for ten years? And don’t come back until you have a ten point plan to rid the world of educated-class hegemony.

This mis-reads CLR James a bit, in my imagination. The benign image of British Colonial rule he extrapolated from the laws of the Cricket he observed implied that Britain, the mother country would of course keep is word to its children and let them grow up and become free.
When he read of the Bodyline tactics in Australia in 1933 he formed a different conclusion, that the empire was not a benign family and the mother country would happily break both its own laws, the spirit of them and its word in order to hold onto to power and wealth. While he continued to love the game into his very old age he lost his illusions about both Britain and the Cricket establishment. Nothing in the reports to do with Yorkshire (or my County Essex) would have surprised him