Piers Morgan has slammed Yorkshire 's handling of the Azeem Rafiq racism scandal as "outrageous" and "cowardly" after former employee Kunwar Bansil spoke out about his sacking.
Bansil worked as Yorkshire's lead physiotherapist for eight years, having been contracted through a third party, before getting axed when new chairman Lord Kamlesh Patel sacked the club's entire backroom staff in December. At the time, Patel said the decision was "necessary to regain trust".
"Without making important changes to how we are run, we cannot move on from the past to become a culture which is progressive and inclusive," he said. "We want to make Yorkshire County Cricket Club a place for everyone, from all backgrounds.
"To do this, we need to rebuild our culture and instil positive values in everyone associated with Yorkshire." However, Bansil, who was born in Yorkshire to Indian parents and has since joined Nottinghamshire as head of science and medicine, told the Times the decision was "unfair, disproportionate and completely immoral".
He said: "Kamlesh Patel talked about transparency, fairness, about listening, engaging everyone and taking people on a journey, and then fired 16 people without consultation or communication. My time at Yorkshire just ended abruptly without any communication or consultation.
"We were completely and utterly blindsided by the decision. And it's not just me; it's all my colleagues.
"I think I speak on behalf of them all when I say that we dedicated our whole energy and completely loved what we were doing, and the demands of professional cricket meant we lived as a family effectively. You make sacrifices together and to think it was taken away in such a cold way.
"I was there almost nine years, but others had close to a 40-year association with the club. Unless you have been through that you don’t quite understand the total brutality of how the situation has been handled.
"Kamlesh is from a social care and mental health background. I wonder if he ever took into consideration the mental health or wellbeing of 16 people and their families?"
Bansil also said he did not experience racism during his time at the club. "The allegations came as a shock and surprise given I was never aware of any racism or complaints of racism during my time at the club," he added.
"The picture painted of Yorkshire was that if you are a person of colour you were made to feel unwelcome, that you'd be regularly bullied or discriminated against. That couldn't be any further from my experience of the club."
And Morgan has hit out at Yorkshire following Bansil's comments, tweeting: "This is outrageous... Yorkshire CC have handled this whole scandal so badly, tossing people like Kunwar onto the cancel culture bonfire in a reckless, cowardly way, just to appease the howling mob. Where is due process?"
In response, Yorkshire said: "We are aware of Mr Bansil's view that there was no problem with racism at the Yorkshire County Cricket Club. He publicised his views, as is well known, in a joint letter with 15 others to the club's board at the time."
