Martyn Moxon on the role he played with new Yorkshire CCC regime
The former director of cricket – who was among the 16 coaches/staff members controversially sacked at the height of the racism crisis – is part of an eight-strong cricket advisory panel set up by the club’s new board.
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Hide AdIt is an unpaid, unofficial position which will see Moxon help out on an as-and-when basis. Also on the panel is Samir Pathak, who chaired the Yorkshire racism investigation panel that considered evidence gathered by the law firm Squire Patton Boggs.
Pathak, a former cricketer for English Universities, is providing insight into areas such as the pathways, with the rest of the panel consisting of club president Jane Powell; board member Katherine Sciver-Brunt; the former Yorkshire batsman (and Moxon’s ex-opening partner) Ashley Metcalfe; the club’s new general manager Gavin Hamilton; interim chief executive Sanjay Patel, and deputy chair Phillip Hodson.
Meetings are on an ad hoc basis, with the panel’s powers/raison d’etre set to diminish with the official arrival of Hamilton and new head coach Anthony McGrath, who both start work on November 1, thereby plugging the gap in cricket knowledge that had earlier seen Michael Vaughan, the former England captain, assist the new board as it began to take shape.
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Hide AdIt has been a period of seismic change since Moxon and his colleagues were summarily fired, without due investigation, by Lord Kamlesh Patel, the former chair, following complaints made by the ex-player Azeem Rafiq, leading to a raft of unfair dismissal payouts.
Moxon, who served Yorkshire for 40 years as a player and coach, continues to keep counsel for now on the events surrounding the sackings in 2021, but he told The Yorkshire Post: “I’m delighted to have been asked by the new board to join its cricket advisory panel, and I’m looking forward to helping the newly-appointed staff in any way I can.
“It’s a very informal role. Obviously, people have now been appointed to management positions within the cricket department, and I’ve just been asked to sit on the panel and advise as and when required, so I could be very busy or I might have nothing to do.
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Hide Ad“But I’m happy to help the new board and the recently appointed staff in any way they feel necessary.”
Colin Graves, the Yorkshire chair, said that Moxon could be utilised in various ways.
The former England batsman, 64, would seem an obvious sounding board for someone like Hamilton, for example, with Hamilton’s new general manager position effectively a rebrand of the director of cricket role.
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Hide Ad“We basically just set up this advisory group when we first went in because we had nobody really with any cricket knowledge,” explained Graves.
“We said to Martyn, do you want to just help us, there’s no pay, it’s not an official position within the club, it’s not an official committee, it’s just something that we’ve set up to help us.
“Martyn said yes he would, and he’ll be looking around the leagues, looking at the pathways and all that sort of stuff, basically whatever comes up as and when.
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Hide Ad“To be honest, as the year goes on, that committee will get diminished more and more because we’ve got a new head coach, a new general manager of cricket and a new head coach of the women, so they’re the ones who’ll be running it from a cricket point of view.”
Moxon is the second of the sacked staff back involved with the club, with the former all-rounder/coach Rich Pyrah having taken on the head women’s role in August. It is possible that more could return as the club rebuilds from the harrowing events.
Kallis deal: Page 27
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