English cricket's culture of racism, sexism and elitism

In England's famous five-wicket win over New Zealand at Lord's in June last year, a little piece of history was created. For the first time ever, Robin Das, a player of Bangladeshi heritage, took the field for England on day one as a substitute fielder.

But that was just about it. No other player of Bangladeshi heritage has officially represented England so far. 

While the general marginalisation of the British-Bangladeshi community could foremost be blamed for this, the ghost of racism that lies within English cricket structure may also have played a bigger role than expected. 

It is said that race and cricket have long been uneasy bedfellows, as there can be few other sports that can rely so heavily upon an international rivalry that consistently pits black against white and former master against uppity ex-servant. 

And what happens when the contrasting factors align? To Azeem Rafiq, the consequence was close to taking his own life. 

The Azeem Rafiq scandal 

For the uninitiated, Rafiq is a former professional cricketer who was born in Pakistan in 1991, and moved to England at the age of 10. He captained England under-19 side in the 2010 U-19 World Cup before being appointed as the captain of Yorkshire County Cricket Club in 2012. 

Though the cricketer spent the majority of his career at this club, his time there was far from pleasant. In a 2020 interview with ESPN Cricinfo, he revealed about being at the receiving end of "institutional racism" and consistent abuse. 

Later in a testimony to a British parliamentary committee, he also added that a culture of racism at Yorkshire drove him to the brink of suicide.

"I lost my career to racism," said Rafiq, hoping his revelations would open the floodgates for fellow victims to come forward and share their stories.

A formal investigation was launched by Yorkshire soon after in response to their former captain's claims, and a year later they admitted that Rafiq had been the 'victim of racial harassment and bullying". 

But that was just the tip of the iceberg. 

While Yorkshire didn't release the full report at that time for legal reasons "in relation to privacy law and defamation", an independent commission has recently reported that English cricket is not only steeped in institutional racism, but also class-based discrimination and sexism.

What does the report say?

The Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC), set up by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2021 established in 2021 in the wake of the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, interviewed more than 4,000 players, coaches, administrators and fans to file the 317-page report. 

The report revealed that at least 50 percent participants experienced discrimination in the previous five years, with the figures substantially higher for people from ethnically diverse communities.

A breakdown of the data analysis shows that people of Bangladeshi and Pakistani heritage are the most – 87% to be exact – to claim to have experienced discrimination, while 82% Indian and 75% Black also claimed the same.  

A big reason behind this discrimination against people of Bangladeshi and Pakistani heritage could lie in "drinking and puerile lads' culture" across the sport that acts as a barrier to the inclusion of Muslim communities, besides putting women at risk of unwanted attention. 

The report further stated that women were often treated as "second-class citizens", not enough had been done to address class barriers, and urges the sport to face up to the fact "that it's not banter or just a few bad apples" causing the problems. 

Finally, it pledged to respond to 44 recommendations made by ICEC within three months. The recommendations range from the modest to the radical, including a number of measures to tackle racism, sexism and elitism, as well as calls for regular "culture" checks to ensure genuine change. 

How will the ECB react? 

In response to the recent report, ECB chairman Richard Thompson said, "On behalf of the ECB and wider leadership of the game, I apologise unreservedly to anyone who has ever been excluded from cricket or made to feel like they don't belong."

"Cricket should be a game for everyone, and we know this has not always been the case," he added. 

Meanwhile, ECB chief Richard Gould called it an "existential issue for the sport".

He added: "This report is a seminal moment for us. It helps us to fully understand the scope of the issues within the game, it allows us to understand the apologies that we quite rightly make to those people that suffered discrimination.

"We are determined to be able to act on this report and deliver on its intent in the coming months."

However, it obviously seems easier said than done, because the ECB itself remains an organisation steeped in racism and class-based discrimination.

It is overwhelmingly dominated by white, public school-educated men who have, as online cricket publication Being Outside Cricket revealed in 2017, "accounted for 80% of the ECB/TCCB (Test and County Cricket Board) chairmen, 67.5% of the chairmen of selectors, and Test captains in 65% of the games" over the previous 40 years.

And in the following six years since then, no significant change could be observed, which further establishes the fact that like other British institutions, ECB is also incapable of reforming itself.

So, it is highly unlikely that the tag of English cricket being racist, sexist and elitist could be removed anytime soon without the intervention of the sport's governing body – International Cricket Council (ICC) in this case. 

But will ICC really do anything? That's another burning question. Clearly they have opted to remain mostly close-mouthed over the matter from the very beginning for reasons quite understandable, and once again they have been silent in the early hours since the publication of the said report.