Yorkshire have announced that Kamlesh Patel is to step down as chair in March after a wildly dramatic and sometimes controversial 16 months in the role. Lord Patel, who was appointed in November 2021, reshaped the club’s governance in the wake of Azeem Rafiq’s revelations of racial abuse while at Yorkshire. He also secured the return of both international cricket and commercial sponsors, seeing off the potentially disastrous possibility that the club might permanently lose them as a result of their poor initial response to the scandal.
Patel’s decision throws the future of the county back into uncertainty, though he will continue to oversee their response to Cricket Discipline Commission charges relating to accusations of racism. “I have achieved most of the things I came in to achieve but, in doing so, I have attracted some fierce criticism,” he said. “My hope is that when I go, I will take the criticism with me and the new management at the club will be able to move forward without any of that baggage.”
