Former Yorkshire CCC chairman calls for "complete clearout" of the club's board

Denison, who was Yorkshire chairman from 2015 to 2018, described the position of Lord Kamlesh Patel, the current incumbent, as “untenable” and said that the board needed to take “collective responsibility” for the “prevailing chaos”.

Denison criticised the “lack of transparency” shown by Patel and also by former chairman Roger Hutton, whom he believes should have published in full the independent report into the racism allegations raised by former player Azeem Rafiq, saying that any potential legal concerns were “no excuse”.

Yorkshire only published the report’s summary findings, which failed to disclose that Rafiq, among other omissions, did not lose his career to racism and that he himself was alleged to have made a number of racially insensitive remarks.

Denison said that Patel’s subsequent decision to sack the entire coaching and medical staff based on “one side of the story” - Rafiq’s - was “grossly unfair” and “hugely damaging to the club financially”, with the various payouts believed to be costing Yorkshire a substantial seven-figure sum.

Denison said that it was “absurd for the club to have made the sacked staff sign NDAs (non-disclosure agreements)” on the one hand but, on the other, for Patel to have stated, on taking office, that it was wrong for the previous board to have insisted that Rafiq should sign one - a stipulation which Patel waived on abruptly settling Rafiq’s employment tribunal claim to the tune of £200,000, a case which the previous board believed it would have won had it gone to court.

Andrew Gale, the former head coach, was the latest forced to sign an NDA despite having refuted “each and every allegation” made by Rafiq, who is now said to be refusing to take part in the forthcoming England and Wales Cricket Board disciplinary hearings unless they are held in public.

Some of those charged by the ECB believe that this is an attempt by Rafiq to avoid cross-examination given that all the evidence has been obtained on the provision that the hearings are private, placing the ECB at risk of being accused of not being serious about tackling racism unless they change the goalposts at the 11th hour. Rafiq’s representatives have declined to comment.

Speaking exclusively to The Yorkshire Post, Denison said: “In my opinion, there needs to be a complete clearout of the Yorkshire board for the club to even start to move forward again.

“Kamlesh came in last winter and set out a simple and straightforward agenda in light of the Rafiq affair - namely, that the club was going to be open and transparent.

“Instead, quite the opposite has happened and the club has become like a secret society, with the chairman invisible and not saying anything, and with no one filling the void or seemingly running the club at all.

"The new board is clearly not up to the task and the club basically needs to draw a line under them all and start again.”

Patel, who was barely seen at Headingley this season, has never shaken off the stigma of the sackings, which have been widely criticised.

Denison described them as “an hysterical overreaction” by a man who knew “absolutely nothing about the club” or the “ins-and-outs of the Rafiq situation”, which has been “grossly misrepresented by the media in general”.

“That’s the biggest example of the lack of judgement,” said Denison, “the sackings.

"There is no way that you can justify what Patel did there.

“They were blatantly unfair and they were done as a knee-jerk reaction on the back of Azeem’s allegations, and before due process had taken place and before everyone involved had been given the opportunity to give their side of the story and present their evidence.

“Because none of that was done, that’s why everything is coming home to roost now and the club is in disarray.

"But the board must take collective responsibility for the decisions that have been taken, including the wholesale sackings.”

Much of the problems might have been avoided had the independent investigation into Rafiq’s claims been published in full.

According to Denison: “There should have been transparency throughout. Right from the outset, that independent investigation report should have been published. That would have been a great example of transparency.

“I think anybody can hide behind a potential legal problem, inverted commas. I think ultimately the best course of action is always to do the right thing.

“Undoubtedly, the right thing in this case would have been to publish, and if there was a risk or a legal challenge, or a claim against the club, then deal with that on its merits, but don’t use a small risk in relation to publication as a reason not to publish at all.”

Denison concluded that the cricket had “gone to pot” in the wake of the crisis and that the players are “completely and utterly broken”. He said that results had been “way below what is acceptable for a great club like Yorkshire”.

The club was approached for comment.