- Colin Graves will resume his role as chairman at Yorkshire CCC
- He left after Azeem Rafiq revealed the racist abuse he suffered at the club
- Graves is back after the cash-strapped club failed to find another owner
It is difficult to imagine that cricket, with the futile intervention of Parliament, could have made a bigger mess of the whole sorry Yorkshire saga if it had tried.
At least three years of turmoil and soul-searching since Azeem Rafiq revealed he was the victim of racist abuse, while at Headingley he seemed to have brought the biggest and most prestigious county club virtually back to where it started.
Back under the chairmanship of businessman Colin Graves, who held the same position between 2012 and 2015, which partly coincided with Rafiq’s spell at Yorkshire and the incidents that led to the club being branded institutionally racist.
How did it get to this point? Is there really no one else who can lead this club out of the doldrums and dire financial situation caused by their mishandling of Rafiq’s allegations?
Apparently not, according to a statement from the ECB on Thursday. This is not an attack on Graves. He has never been accused of any wrongdoing by the ECB, has invested a significant amount of money in Yorkshire and is brave or stupid enough to want to return.
Colin Graves (pictured) returns to Yorkshire as chairman of the prestigious county club
He left earlier after player and whistleblower Azeem Rafiq revealed the racist abuse he suffered at the club
Graves’ biggest ‘crime’ is his tendency to put his foot in his mouth, as he did when he was ECB chairman and criticized the quality of his own product, the T20 Blast, before signing the West Indies as labeled ‘mediocre’ just before they defeated. England.
His original claim that some of the comments to Rafiq were ‘jokery’, even though he also said those comments were ‘unacceptable’, is of course far worse than any mistake made at the ECB.
But Graves apologized for that in a statement on Thursday, insisting the recommendations of the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket will be implemented by Yorkshire in his second coming as chairman.
Yorkshire, the sport in general and even Rafiq, who has criticized Graves’ return, can only take his word for it because there really doesn’t seem to be anyone else willing and able to accept what a poisoned chalice has become.
And Yorkshire will certainly be in better hands under Graves than if they were ‘owned’ by Mike Ashley, a maligned figure at Newcastle United, or by Saudi Arabian interests, both of whom were apparently on the verge of taking over.
No, the villain of this piece is not Graves. There are many parties more guilty than him. Like those in Yorkshire who proposed the original study and tried to bury its findings on the same day the 2021 England v India Test was halted due to Covid.
Lord Patel (pictured) should take a lot of the blame for botching the job that now goes back to Graves
And those MPs from all parties on the Culture, Media and Sport select committee chaired by Julian Knight, who only cared about grandstanding rather than giving someone accused in Yorkshire a fair trial.
The biggest culprit is a good cricket man, Lord Patel, who made an absolute Horlicks of the job that now goes back to Graves, after being parachuted in by the ECB to oversee what should have been a fresh start.
Instead, seemingly under pressure from a panicky ECB, Patel fired anyone who even came near Headingley, let alone worked there during Rafiq’s time, without due process. The high price for this is still being paid by Yorkshire, which is so broke that they are dependent on ECB subsidies and close to the government.
There’s an old joke about a man who, when asked for directions, says, “Well, if I were you, I wouldn’t start here.” That’s where Yorkshire seems to be again. That’s how it always was.