Cricket has failed to tackle racism

What’s just happened at Yorkshire Cricket Club is not an isolated incident. The England Cricket Board (ECB) can’t claim this is only a Yorkshire problem. The interview with?Roger Hutton, outgoing Chair of Yorkshire Cricket Club, was insightful. He said, “personally I’ve not seen any instances of racism, just a culture that’s stuck in the past”.

Racism is being stuck in the past. It’s ignorance. Assuming that just because you haven’t seen it, it doesn’t exist, is a poor strategy in any scenario. There is clear blue water between executives who recognize the need to be humble and learn more, and those that already think they have this down. Here’s my analysis of what’s gone wrong in Cricket:

Over 23 years ago, in June 1998, 56 British Members of Parliament asked the?English Cricket Board?to tackle “a culture of racial exclusion, racial stereotyping and … racial abuse of Black and Asian cricket players” that was documented in a?report.?When?Bradford North MP Terry Rooney spoke in parliament about “the deep-rooted embedded racism in Yorkshire County Cricket Club”, the reaction of the Cricket Club was not a desire to improve, but outright defensiveness.?

A typical defensive move is to point to a few “ethnic minority” players on the team, like a CEO might point to his one female or Asian Executive. The then President, Robin Smith, had a classic response, demanding an apology based on the fact Ismail Dawood was on the first team. Dawood went on to sue the ECB for racial discrimination.?

The ECB can try and make this a Yorkshire problem. That would be a mistake. Whilst there will of course be microcultures in the Country Cricket Boards, the overall?ECB Executive?is 10 white people and 1 Asian man. The external Board is easier to change than the internal body.

Michael Vaughan, ex England Captain, has displayed his complete lack of grasp of the issue live on the BBC in his role as pundit and in written form in the?Daily Telegraph. He was accused of racism by Azeem Rafiq. It is still astounding that so many pundits haven’t a clue about diversity issues when they are presiding as judge and jury over diverse teams.

Many white officials might see racism as a “Black” issue, reflecting the success of Black Lives Matter. Cricket is overwhelmingly white and Asian, and perhaps commentators lack the cultural intelligence to differentiate and deploy nuance.

Several leaders in cricket have point blank refused to engage in diversity training. I know this because I have spoken to them and challenged them. What’s just happened in Cricket results from people rejecting education. Nike, Emerald Publishing and Yorkshire Tea have all withdrawn their sponsorship and association with Yorkshire County Cricket Club. It shouldn’t take corporate pressure to replace executive leadership.

It shouldn’t take Azeem Rafiq to bring this issue to our attention. It shouldn’t take?Josh Cavallo coming out?in football to lead the fight against homophobia. It shouldn’t take Marcus Rashford and Bukayo Saka missing a penalty at the England World Cup Semi Final to deal with racism in football.

Racism is systemic. Of the 176 riders in the 2020 Tour de France there was one Black rider. There were no Black riders in the Tour de France at all until 2011. Despite the fact that cycling is overwhelmingly white and ridden with enormous?scandals, British Cycling’s recent attempts at Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) work have been limited to belatedly establishing a?“Diversity Advisory group” in 2021, but there are no significant resources behind this that even begin to address the scale of the challenge.

There is some change afoot in Cricket with recent appointments to the ECB Board such as Brenda Trenowden and Valerie Amos who are longstanding champions of diversity and inclusion. This has yet to trickle down. It will take more than appointments. The question for cricket remains, why should it be Azeem Rafiq’s job to tackle racism in cricket when he is the victim? Where is the leadership? The England Cricket Board needs to educate itself, step up and lead.

This is not just sport. No organization, no executive, gets a free pass on this issue. It’s clear to me, based on academic and professional work in DEI over 25 years, that the executives who need DEI most are the ones least likely to ask for it. I applaud those executives who have the humility, grace and savvy to realise that however educated you think you might be, there is always more to learn.