Yorkshire CCC: Gary Ballance takes first steps on long comeback trail

But eight months after being named as a central figure in the Yorkshire racism crisis, and almost 10 months since he last picked up a bat in anger for the club, Ballance yesterday played his first innings since the allegations raised by his former close friend and team-mate Azeem Rafiq.

Granted, they were little more than baby steps, taken before one man and his dog at the Weetwood Sports Ground in Leeds during a Second XI Championship match against Essex, but every journey back to redemption starts with a single step, as the Chinese proverb almost said.

Ballance scored 61 from 58 balls with 12 fours and a six, but the statistics of the innings were unimportant; what mattered was that the 32-year-old left-hander, still with so much to give to the game and a popular figure with Yorkshire’s players, staff and supporters, was back doing what he does best after a long period plagued by his mental health.

Ballance had been back training for a while, working diligently behind the scenes, and the question now is: when might he play for the first team?

Yorkshire return to County Championship action on Monday, against Surrey at Scarborough, a ground where he has often sparkled. But no one is putting pressure on Ballance, instead allowing him to take things at his own pace.

It is the right strategy by the Yorkshire hierarchy, which has correctly, if contradictorily stood by him in view of the mass sackings of those much less implicated in the matter, if at all.

There remain significant hurdles, though, for Ballance and the club to overcome.

The player has been charged by the England and Wales Cricket Board for racial slurs, readily admitted, towards Rafiq on nights out in their younger days in the context of what Ballance insisted was a “friendly verbal attack” that worked both ways.

Ballance, in fact, was the only person still at Yorkshire when the crisis began who has admitted using any racist language towards Rafiq, saying in a statement in November that he “deeply regretted” it but very noticeably and suggestively not actually apologising for it; the pair fell out before Rafiq left the club in 2018.

The ECB disciplinary hearings, set for the autumn, are de facto meaningless and a scandal in themselves as there has been no attempt to interview, for example, Andrew Gale, the former head coach who has been charged, or apparently any official who ran Yorkshire during Rafiq’s time as a player.

One of those officials, Robin Smith, the former Yorkshire chairman, believes the case for a public inquiry is now irrefutable and wants MPs and other influential figures to intervene urgently.

Smith has also written to Lord Patel, the Yorkshire chairman, asking for the club’s support for a public inquiry. Although well-documented that Smith and the current Yorkshire hierarchy/Rafiq are on opposite sides of the boundary rope, as it were, Smith said he backed Rafiq’s call for total transparency and hopes that Rafiq will also champion a public inquiry himself. The advantage would be to compel evidence and testimony that would otherwise be unseen/unheard under the protection of legal privilege.

In a letter seen by The Yorkshire Post to Lord Patel and the ECB’s lawyers, Smith writes: “There is widespread public disquiet about this matter throughout Yorkshire and no doubt throughout the game.

“Azeem Rafiq, through Powerscourt, his PR advisors, has called for a public hearing of the evidence. This has my full support.

“A full public inquiry is the only way that the truth will emerge, but it is essential that its brief covers the conduct not just of the club’s officers and employees, but also that of the ECB itself and of the DCMS select committee.

“There have been a number of calls already for a public inquiry and, in the interests of transparency and truth, I invite the club to join in them without delay.”

Smith has also urged Yorkshire not to plead guilty to ECB charges against it relating to his own time in office. Those concern the treatment of Rafiq’s allegations before he left the club and a claim that Smith pressured Ismail Dawood, the former Yorkshire wicketkeeper, to tell Terry Rooney, the former MP for Bradford North, that there was no racism at Yorkshire after Rooney said otherwise under parliamentary privilege in 2004.

“I have a full answer to both allegations,” writes Smith. “The full facts must be heard and I am able to supply them, notwithstanding the ECB’s inexplicable lack of interest in interviewing me.”