Yorkshire chairman Lord Patel welcomed international back to a supposedly more inclusive Headingley by revealing that he still receives ‘phenomenally racist’ letters in the wake of the Azeem Rafiq affair.
Patel admitted that there remains people connected with the club who do not believe that any racism occured here despite the testimony of Rafiq at a parliamentary hearing last year.
And yet if it wasn’t for the efforts of Patel and a new leadership structure to change the way the club was operating, it is highly unlikely that this Test match would be going ahead - which in turn could have seen Yorkshire cricket club go to the wall.
