English Cricket to be fixed fast: CEO

LONDON • English cricket is close to an emergency over its failure to address diversity issues, according to the England and Wales Cricket Board's (ECB) chief executive officer Tom Harrison.

He was quizzed by members of a British parliamentary committee on Tuesday shortly after former Yorkshire player Azeem Rafiq's harrowing account of racial slurs at the club which had left him feeling "isolated and humiliated".

Yorkshire's response to an independent report into Rafiq's allegations attracted widespread criticism and led the ECB to suspend Yorkshire as a host for international games while the club also lost key sponsors.

Harrison told the panel that Yorkshire's handling of the report "speaks to institutional racism".

"We've been aware of the importance of this agenda - not just racism, but diversity and equity. What we've struggled with is getting our first-class game to wake up. If we're not in an emergency, we're approaching one," he said.

Addressing members of the government's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Harrison also commended Rafiq's "bravery" in speaking out.

"We need to start to look at dressing room culture throughout the country," Harrison said. "There's a huge effort on this from the ECB but it takes time to trickle through."

Rafiq is a Muslim off spin bowler who was born in Pakistan, raised in Barnsley and captained England's Under-19 side. In more than an hour of distressing testimony in which he broke down in tears, the 30-year-old said he and other players with Asian backgrounds were subjected to racial slurs such as "you lot sit over there" and referred to as "Paki" and "elephant washers".

He also recounted having red wine poured down his throat as a 15-year-old and spoke of Asian players being singled out for mistakes while they were fasting.

He also said the racism he endured at Yorkshire was "without a shadow of doubt" replicated across the country, and that British Asian representation in the professional game had dropped 40 per cent since 2010.

Asked about the perception of English cricket to Britain's Asian and Black community, Harrison said: "I'd say please understand that we're really sorry for the experiences you may have been through trying to experience cricket in this country.

"We know we may have let you down. We'll fix it fast. We know the survival of our sport depends on it. We'll transform this game very quickly."

Roger Hutton, who quit as Yorkshire chairman claiming there was a culture within the club that refuses to accept change, was critical of the ECB's handling of the inquiry, saying the governing body should have been more involved.

Some of English cricket's biggest names have been dragged into the controversy. Rafiq says England captain Michael Vaughan told him and two other players of Asian origin that there were "too many of you lot, we need to do something about it" before a match in 2009. Vaughan strongly denies the allegation.

REUTERS