Public inquiry into Yorkshire CCC racism scandal is crucial no matter how long it takes - Chris Waters

“Mr Waters recently wrote that there is ‘no end in sight to this wretched affair’. Yet he is calling for a public inquiry which, as anyone knows, would add years to this saga.”

It seems a curious argument, if I may say so.

Yes, it would indeed be nice if the whole thing could be put to bed as quickly as possible, so that Patel can continue, as the writer put it, with his “much-needed and essential reforms”, his “hard work and clear-eyed vision”.

But there is just one problem.

What is the actual truth of the story?

What are the proverbial – not the “Three Ws” in this case – but the “Five Ws” of “Who, What, When, Where and Why”?

If anything, after the brave and revelatory testimony of Kunwar Bansil, the British Asian physiotherapist who was one of those summarily sacked by Patel in December, the need for a public inquiry is greater than ever; essential, in fact.

Bansil, as you may know, was one of the 14 people who signed a letter to the old Yorkshire board that effectively stated that the entire crisis had been maliciously motivated and that the regime deposed bore no resemblance to the one routinely presented.

“The picture painted of Yorkshire was that if you are a person of colour you were made to feel unwelcome, that you’d be regularly bullied and discriminated against,” said Bansil, who insisted that he was “never aware of any racism” during his eight years at Headingley.

“That couldn’t be any further from my experiences of the club.”

Mine neither, and although I am not a person of colour, or on the ‘inside’ as Bansil was, I do not believe that the evidence has been anything like properly tested, let alone comprehensively gathered, to the extent that the extreme repercussions that have ensued – the departure of some 20 or so individuals, their careers and reputations trashed, in some cases ruined, the loss of millions of pounds, and so on – can be justified by any right-thinking observer.

As the former England captain Mike Atherton put it in The Times interview that carried those quotes from Bansil: “In my view, this whole episode has been marked by problems with due process.

“The initial Yorkshire inquiry was subsequently criticised as ‘flawed’ by Patel; the DCMS hearing was limited in scope; the current ECB enquiry has charged one person (Andrew Gale) without conducting an interview with him, and the dismissal of 16 people (at Yorkshire, by Patel) happened without any consultation.”

In short, there has been a total lack of fair treatment, the definition of “due process”.

It may be necessary to explain here, if obviously not to placate the unreachable mob on social media, that I couldn’t care less what a public inquiry might unearth.

By that, I mean to say that should it arrive at conclusions that are unwelcome to me, which challenge my own position, my own perception as someone who has covered the club for nearly 20 years, so be it; the only thing that counts is the discovery of the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

It would be absurd to say, that back through the years, there had never been any racism at Yorkshire (we know that there was), but we are dealing with a very specific set of people who have lost their jobs on the back of scantily acquired and analysed evidence.

The advantage of a public inquiry is that it would statutorily compel people to take part, under the protection of legal privilege, and for every shred of evidence to be brought into the light.

Why, one had been given to understand that this was precisely what certain individuals wanted from the outset, although I notice that there has been no widespread taking up of these cudgels for total transparency. Why? The ECB inquiry, as Atherton hinted, is a sham; the Yorkshire investigation, for all its flaws, was more reliable.

So much so, all the ECB probe is doing is kicking the need for a public inquiry further down the road; how can an ECB investigation which has not, by all accounts, interviewed a single person in charge at Yorkshire during the period in question, among sundry shortcomings, purport to be taken seriously?

Particular focus, it seems to me, must centre not only on the ECB but also on the government/DCMS select committee and its chairman, Julian Knight MP.

Among the questions I would like answered is: why, after writing to Yorkshire in September 2021 to demand that they “publish the full report” from the initial investigation so that it is “public and open to scrutiny”, did Knight then choose not to publish that report under parliamentary privilege two months later?

Instead, the DCMS published only Azeem Rafiq’s uncontested witness statement to the Leeds employment tribunal.

Why?

Knight’s explanation, as he told the November hearing, was: “We are not choosing to publish the report. Frankly, it is Yorkshire’s mess. They should be the ones publishing this report and explaining themselves rather than hoping that our committee will do it for them so they do not get sued.”

I find that a deeply unsatisfactory explanation given Knight’s previous insistence.

That Knight pre-judged his own hearing is deeply troubling and itself deserving of greater scrutiny.

“Given the endemic racism at Yorkshire County Cricket Club, I struggle to think of any reason why the board should remain in post,” Knight tweeted on November 2, 14 days before his kangaroo court sat in judgement.

“This is one of the most repellent and disturbing episodes in modern cricket history.”

On that last point, I agree, which is why a public inquiry is so urgently required.

If that takes years, then, in pursuit of truth and justice for all, it takes years.