Michael Vaughan has described the proceedings of the Cricket Discipline Commission (CDC) as “inappropriate and inadequate” after charges against him of using racist and/or discriminatory language and bringing the game into disrepute were dismissed on Friday, saying the process of clearing his name “brought me to the brink of falling out of love with cricket”.
Vaughan was the only one of those charged by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) as a result of Azeem Rafiq’s descriptions of his treatment while a player at Yorkshire to be cleared by the CDC panel. John Blain, Tim Bresnan, Andrew Gale, Matthew Hoggard and Richard Pyrah, former Yorkshire players and coaches whose cases were heard in their absence after they withdrew from the disciplinary process, were all found to have breached ECB directive 3.3 by engaging in “conduct which may be prejudicial to the interests of cricket or which may bring the game of cricket or any cricketer or group of cricketers into disrepute”, by using racist language.
