The Cricket Discipline Commission found six of the seven people accused of making racial remarks at Yorkshire Cricket Club to be guilty. Former England captain Michael Vaughan was the only one who was cleared of the charges.
The former captain of England was one of seven people charged with racial abuse after an investigation by the England and Wales Cricket Board found that racist language had been used a lot in Yorkshire over the past 20 years.
Former Yorkshire cricketer Azeem Rafiq said that Vaughan told a group of four British Asian and Asian players during a pre-match huddle before a Yorkshire match in 2009, “There are too many of you.”
The CDC made its decision on Friday, March 31, after hearing the evidence in the case earlier in March.
The CDC verdict brought up the fact that Rafiq and Adil Rashid’s witness testimony didn’t match up with what they said in court. Rana Naveed ul Hasan, who at first backed up Rafiq’s claims, also didn’t say anything to the ECB. Rana said that Vaughan said “you lot” in a conversation with ITV in 2021, but the hearings did not include testimony to that effect.
In its decision about the charge against Vaughan, which was mostly based on testimony from witnesses on both sides, the panel said, “The panel has been asked to focus on the focused evidence presented to it by both parties about one comment made in two parts on an afternoon nearly 14 years ago.”
“This is not a case in which the Panel had to decide that someone had lied or done something bad. Far from it, the Panel had to decide if, based on all the evidence, the ECB’s case was accurate and reliable enough, on the balance of probabilities, to rule out error. It wasn’t,” said the rest of the verdict.
In a statement after the verdict, Michael Vaughan said that the CDC process was “inappropriate, inadequate, and a step backwards.”
In his statement, he said, “There are no winners in this process, and there must be better ways for cricket to move forward in a positive and effective way.”
“At times, this process has made me feel like I don’t love cricket anymore. I won’t talk about how hard it has been on me and my family here, but I have no doubt that it has been incredibly stressful for everyone else involved. I hope that for them and for cricket, a healing process that includes everyone can now begin.”
Matthew Hoggard, Tim Bresnan, and Gary Ballance were found guilty.
Matthew Hoggard, Tim Bresnan, John Blain, Richard Pyrah, and Andrew Gale all decided not to defend themselves at the CDC hearing. The other five men didn’t show up because they didn’t trust the ECB’s investigation or the disciplinary process.
Gary Ballance, a former player for England, accepted the charge against him and did not have his case heard at the CDC hearings. Since then, he has moved to Zimbabwe and is now playing for his home country on an international level.
Yorkshire has already admitted to four ECB charges, and at a later date, there will be a hearing to decide how to punish them.
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