Adil Rashid has explained how English cricket is evolving to embrace diversity, after a period in which the sport has been hit by numerous accusations of systemic racism.
In 2020, former Yorkshire player Azeem Rafiq alleged that he was the subject of racist slurs during his time at the club, and ex-teammate Gary Ballance later admitted to being one of the individuals culpable of using such language towards the 31-year-old.
The scandal led Yorkshire County Cricket Club to sack its entire coaching staff last December, after key figures in the organisation’s hierarchy resigned. Furthermore, there were hearings involving Rafiq and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).
Now, One Day International and Twenty20 England international Rashid has commented on the steps that English cricket is making to improve its culture.
Rashid, who plays for Yorkshire and is a practising Muslim, said in a Royal London video: “I’d wanted to go on my Hajj [an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca] for the last couple of years but, because of cricket, it’d always been a bit tricky.
“This year I spoke to the ECB [England and Wales Cricket Board] and my county, Yorkshire, and they said: ‘A hundred per cent, go – do what you need to do and then come back into cricket.’
“So, for me it was easy to make that decision, whereas in the past it was maybe a bit more tricky.”
Rashid’s England teammate Saqib Mahmood added: “The [current England] group is 100 per cent the best I’ve been a part of. When you walk into a dressing room where you can be yourself, you grow as a person as well.”
Rafiq’s allegations relating to his time at Yorkshire, and the subsequent DCMS hearings, led to various questions around the state of English cricket and the apparent presence of systemic racism.
This June, former Yorkshire head coach Andrew Gale won an unfair dismissal claim against the club after he was sacked in the wake of the Rafiq scandal.
