LONDON: Former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan told a hearing into accusations of racism at Yorkshire on Friday it was “inconceivable” he would make the comment attributed to him by Azeem Rafiq as his former county team-mate was accused of being ready to play the “race card.”
Vaughan and a number of other former players at the county cricket club face charges related to the use of racially discriminatory language.
Pakistan-born Rafiq, 32, first went public with allegations of racism and bullying in September 2020, related to his two spells at Yorkshire.
Rafiq alleged Vaughan told him and three other Yorkshire players of Asian origin “there’s too many of you lot, we need to do something about it,” before a 2009 Twenty20 match between Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge.
England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) lawyer Jane Mulcahy asked Vaughan at the ongoing Cricket Discipline Commission hearing in London whether the words “there’s too many of you lot” were “totally unacceptable” as well as “racist and discriminatory.”
“Absolutely,” said Vaughan, 48, who in his witness statement said: “I consider it to be inconceivable that I would use the words contained in the allegation.”
Rafiq’s conduct, however, was also called into question later Friday when Matthew Wood, a former personal development manager at the Professional Cricketers’ Association and an ex-Yorkshire cricketer, said in a witness statement: “In my dealings with Azeem, I was aware of two occasions in which he (directly or indirectly) acknowledged that he would be prepared to use the ‘race card’.
“By that, I understood Azeem to mean that he would make, or allude to, an allegation of racism in bad faith in order to gain an advantage.”
Wood’s statement also referenced a 2018 conversation with Rafiq in which he recalled: “I asked Azeem, ‘And what will you do if Yorkshire don’t offer you a new contract?’ Azeem replied with words to the effect of, ‘I’ll just hit them with the race card’.”
Mulcahy told the hearing Wood had not made reference to Rafiq “using the race card” when speaking to Yorkshire investigators or an employment tribunal involving Rafiq.
Wood replied: “At the time it wasn’t asked and I wasn’t sure where it was going. My superiors at the PCA knew about Rafiq’s comments and I later added it to my statement.”
Earlier, 2005 Ashes-winning skipper Vaughan insisted: “If you go through the history of me as a player I don’t know any time I’d have gone onto a pitch and said something to my team-mates that would have put them in a bad state of mind to play cricket.”
He added: “You’ve got three or four Asian players in the (Yorkshire) team at the same time, I couldn’t have been more proud.”
Mulcahy asked Vaughan why, if nothing untoward had happened, he had arranged a meeting with Rafiq in November 2021.
Vaughan answered: “I felt it was getting too big, hurting too many people. It’s not been easy for anybody, this.
“I don’t think this is the right process to deal with a word-versus-word process from 14 years ago. Whatever happens, this has a terrible look on the game, a real bad look on how cricket has dealt with this situation.”
The ECB brought charges against seven individuals, and Yorkshire, in June last year, with the club admitting four charges.
Vaughan is the only former player to contest the charges in person.
“Being named and implicated in this matter has had a profound effect on me,” said the former Test batsman.
“My health and personal wellbeing have suffered badly.”
Vaughan denies racism as Rafiq accused of being ready to play ‘race card’
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Vaughan denies racism as Rafiq accused of being ready to play ‘race card’
- Vaughan and a number of other former players at the county cricket club face charges related to the use of racially discriminatory language
- Pakistan-born Rafiq, 32, first went public with allegations of racism and bullying in September 2020, related to his two spells at Yorkshire
England complete series win over West Indies with a game to spare after chasing down a target of 197
England complete series win over West Indies with a game to spare after chasing down a target of 197
- Former captain Jos Buttler led the way with 47 and current skipper Harry Brook made 34
BRISTOL: England completed a series win over the West Indies with a game to spare after chasing down a target of 197 in the second T20 international in Bristol on Sunday.
Former captain Jos Buttler led the way with 47 and current skipper Harry Brook made 34 as the hosts reached 112-2 inside 13 overs.
But the duo were dismissed in consecutive overs, with England still needing 85 more runs to win. But that was the cue for two of the newer team members to lay down a marker.
Jacob Bethell’s rapid 26 off 10 balls, including three sixes, and Tom Banton’s 30 not out helped complete a four-wicket win with nine balls remaining as England went 2-0 up ahead of Tuesday’s series finale in Southampton.
West Indies were struggling at 121-4 off 16 overs before adding 75 runs in the final four overs of their innings.
Luke Wood gave England the ideal start when his swinging yorker had Evin Lewis lbw with the first ball of the match, but West Indies captain Shai Hope (49) and Johnson Charles (47) repaired some of the early damage in a stand of 90.
Rovman Powell added late impetus with 34 off 15 balls and former captain Jason Holder struck 29 off nine.
Adil Rashid bowled the penultimate over as England again only selected two seamers, but the veteran leg-spinner conceded 31 runs and finished with figures of 1-59 — his most-expensive T20 return.
Separately, Beau Webster is hoping to make an already memorable 2025 extra special by featuring for Australia in the World Test Championship final against South Africa at Lord’s.
Webster only won the first of his three Test caps in January and was in the side when Australia played their most recent red-ball international, against Sri Lanka in February.
The 31-year-old all-rounder would relish the opportunity to play for the World Test champions on the hallowed turf at Lord’s.
“It’s pretty special. I’ve been here a couple of times to watch a few games throughout the years, but to be out in the middle, yeah, extra special,” he told reporters at Lord’s on Sunday.
“If I get the nod, I’m looking forward to Wednesday.”
Buttler and Dawson shine as England beat West Indies in T20 opener
- West Indies finished on 167-9, with Romario Shepherd caught on the final ball of the match
DURHAM, England: Former captain Jos Buttler scored a superb 96 off 59 balls, and Liam Dawson took four wickets on his international return, as England beat West Indies by 21 runs in the T20 series opener at Durham’s Riverside ground on Friday.
After making a 3-0 winning start to Harry Brook’s captaincy in the one-dayers, England kept the momentum in the shorter format with an innings of 188-6 after winning the toss and batting first.
West Indies finished on 167-9, with Romario Shepherd caught on the final ball of the match.
Buttler, in at number three with England 16-1 after Ben Duckett was caught by West Indies captain Shai Hope off Shepherd, brought up his half century from 25 balls in the eighth over.
He had earlier smashed three sixes and scooped a four from the first four balls of a devastating sixth over with Alzarri Joseph bowling.
The 34-year-old, who stepped down as white-ball captain last February following England’s group-stage exit from the Champions Trophy, continued to look like a man relieved of a heavy burden as he hit six fours and four sixes.
Needing just four for the century, he was out lbw to Joseph in the penultimate over.
The tally was Buttler’s highest T20 international score on home soil.
West Indies were 33-2 off 5.2 overs after losing Johnson Charles for 18, stumped by Buttler off Dawson, and Hope caught by Duckett, who repaid his own dismissal in like-for-like fashion, for three off debutant Matthew Potts.
England restricted the visitors to 44-2 at the end of the powerplay, compared to 78-1 at the same stage of the home innings.
Evin Lewis hit West Indies top score of 39 off 23 balls, before being caught by Brydon Carse with Jacob Bethell bowling.
Dawson, back in the side at 35 and playing his first England match since 2022, claimed his second and third wickets when Duckett caught Sherfane Rutherford (2) and Roston Chase (24) in quick succession.
The left-arm spinner wrapped up with a fourth wicket, for 20 runs from his four overs, by bowling Rovman Powell as West Indies slipped to 115-6 on a tough night in the north-east.
Bengaluru offer cash help after deadly India cricket stampede
- The euphoria of the vast crowds ended in disaster when 11 fans died in a stampede near the city’s M. Chinnaswamy Stadium
- Most of the dead were young fans aged between 14 and 29 who had gone out just to catch a glimpse of their heroes
BENGALURU: Royal Challengers Bengaluru said Thursday they stood “united” with fans as the Indian Premier League champions announced financial aid to families of those crushed to death during their title celebrations.
Hundreds of thousands had packed the streets in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru on Wednesday to welcome home their hero Virat Kohli and his RCB team-mates after they beat Punjab Kings in a thrilling IPL final.
But the euphoria of the vast crowds ended in disaster when 11 fans died in a stampede near the city’s M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, where the players were parading the trophy.
Most of the dead were young fans aged between 14 and 29 who had gone out just to catch a glimpse of their heroes.
Dozens of abandoned shoes and flip-flops littered the site in the aftermath.
RCB offered financial aid of $11,655 to each family of those killed.
Indian media have widely reported the team earned $2.3 million in prize money alone for taking the title on Wednesday.
“Our fans will always remain at the heart of everything that we do,” RCB said. “We remain united in grief.”
Kohli, who top-scored in the final, said he was “at a loss for words” after celebrations of a dream IPL crown turned to tragedy.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the accident “absolutely heartrending.”
Police used mild force to disperse people outside the stadium, an eyewitness told AFP, but the crowd was “extremely difficult” to control.
Lakshminarayan, who lost his 14-year-old granddaughter in the crush, said his family carried the child in a motor rickshaw to hospital.
He said celebrations should have been delayed to prepare for the widely expected mass crowds.
“There was no need to conduct celebrations the very next day, they should have postponed it to a week and organized it a better way,” he said.
“You should take all precautionary measures, they should have police protection and follow the queue system.”
One of the people injured described to AFP how a “huge crowd” had crushed her.
“They stamped on me,” said the woman, who did not give her name, from a wheelchair.
“I was not able to breathe. I fell unconscious.”
Street food vendor Manoj Kumar mourned the death of his 18-year-old son.
“I wanted him to go to college,” Kumar told the Indian Express newspaper.
“I brought him up with a lot of care. Now he is gone.”
A grieving mother outside a city mortuary said her 22-year-old engineering student son had also died.
“He was crazy about RCB,” she was quoted as saying by the Indian Express.
“He died in an RCB shirt. They danced when RCB won and now he is gone. Can RCB give him back to us?“
Authorities had already called off RCB’s proposed open-top bus victory parade through the streets after anticipating vast crowds.
But organizers pressed ahead with the welcome ceremony and celebrations inside the stadium.
RCB’s social media account posted a video of cheering crowds lining the streets as the players waved back from their team bus on their way to the stadium.
The team said they cut short the celebrations “immediately upon being made aware of the situation.”
Karnataka state chief minister Siddaramaiah said that the stadium had a capacity of “only 35,000 people, but 200,000-300,000 people came.”
UAE’s ‘giant-killing’ of Bangladesh not as unlikely as some might think
- At first sight, the UAE men’s team beating Bangladesh in a 3-match T20 series appears to be an upset. On closer examination, this would be a disservice to the UAE in this format
“Giant-killing” in sport is often associated with cup competitions in soccer, when a team from a lower division beats one placed in a higher division.
A recent example was when Plymouth Argyle, near the foot of the Championship — effectively, the second tier of English football — beat the leaders of the Premier League, Liverpool, in the fourth round of the FA Cup on Feb. 9, 2025. There have been many other legendary examples of giant-killing in soccer. Use of the term to describe similar feats in other sports does not appear to be commonplace.
Perhaps it reflects the different structure of other sports. At its apex, cricket is not structured by divisions. Only 12 teams play Test cricket against each other. In one-day international cricket (ODIs) and T20 international cricket, the International Cricket Council rates teams according to performance. The Test-playing teams occupy the highest-rated positions in the shorter formats by virtue of their greater strength. Outside of World Cup tournaments they rarely play teams rated in the 20 places below them. Therefore, the opportunities for giant-killing would appear to be restricted.
This is not to say that upsets and surprises do not happen. They are part of the natural rhythm of sport. Identifying when they may happen is a challenging task. In Liverpool’s case, the manager selected a team consisting of a number of players who were not normally first choice for league matches. Last week I referred to Zimbabwe’s defeat of Australia in the group stage of the 1983 World Cup at Nottingham. Two members of the Zimbabwean team met several of the Australian team the evening before the match at the hotel where both teams were staying.
The Zimbabweans were surprised to learn of the level of disharmony within the Australian camp and the openness with which it was revealed. This revelation gave them hope and confidence, but it was not until the closing stages of the match that they realised a shock win was possible against an aging Australian team. The part-time players of Zimbabwe triumphed by 13 runs. Afterwards, the Australian captain admitted that “We knew nothing about them at all. There was no video analysis. We said, ‘We’ll find out what they’re like when we get out there on the park’.”
A vastly different environment exists today in which technical analysis of players’ performances in different circumstances are forensically assessed, with plans drawn up to promote, expose and counter them. It is not clear if these have led to upsets of smaller nations beating more powerful ones. At first sight, the UAE men’s team beating Bangladesh in a three-match T20 series between May 17 and 21 might appear to be an upset. On closer examination, this would be a disservice to the UAE in this format.
Prior to the series, Bangladesh were rated ninth in the ICC T20 rankings, compared with 15th for the UAE. The ratings are the result of dividing the total number of points earned by the number of games played. Bangladesh had a rating of 225 prior to the series compared with 181 for the UAE. Although there were only six places separating Bangladesh and the UAE, the reality is that, given the points system of two points for a win and minus two points for a loss, it would take a significant time for the UAE and teams with similar ratings to bridge the gap.
This puts the UAE’s series win into greater perspective. Bangladesh won the first match by 27 runs, the UAE losing its last seven wickets for 33 runs. In the second match, Bangladesh posted 205 for 5 wickets which the UAE chased down with only one delivery remaining for the loss of eight wickets. Muhammad Waseem top scored with 82. The crucial difference in that match was that the UAE’s lower order did not collapse. In the third match, the UAE chased down 163 for the loss of only three wickets, with five deliveries remaining. Alishan Sharafu scored an undefeated 68, assisted by 41 not out from Asif Khan. Earlier, Haider Ali had claimed three wickets for only seven runs.
After the series, Litton Das, Bangladesh’s captain, noted that his team bowled and fielded in the second half of all three matches, the UAE having won the toss and elected to field. He said that dew was a factor in making the ball more difficult to grip and field cleanly, adding that his team’s batting, including his own, had not been consistent enough. This pattern continued in Bangladesh’s next series against Pakistan, which the latter won 3-0. As a result, Bangladesh have dropped one rating place to 10th.
Although the UAE’s rating remained unchanged, the UAE team and their management were understandably delighted with the outcome. Emirates Cricket Board Chairman Nahayan Mabarak Al-Nahayan congratulated the team on their historic series win, saying that “the team had played brilliantly in the whole series, while the support staff put in the hard yards to make the victory possible, another glorious chapter in our cricketing history.” He added that the board will “continue to provide the best possible facilities and exposure to our immensely talented players.”
The UAE have previously beaten Test-playing countries Ireland, New Zealand and Afghanistan, the last two in 2023. Victory over Bangladesh should, as the chairman remarked, “give immense confidence and self-belief to our players and make them take on bigger and more established opponents.” It is in this context that giant-killing acts in cricket may be judged — the defeat of a Test-playing, ICC full member being defeated by an associate nation.
It was certainly a shock when the Netherlands beat South Africa in the group stages of the 2023 World Cup at Dharamsala by 38 runs. In the same competition, Afghanistan beat England by 69 runs. A year later, the US, as joint host nation of the 2024 T20 World Cup, beat Pakistan in a super over, bowled because the match scores were tied. One of the greatest upsets was achieved by Ireland in the 2011 ODI World Cup in Bengaluru. England scored 327 and, in reply, Ireland slumped to 111 for five. Kevin O’Brien then hammered 100 off 50 deliveries to propel Ireland to a sensational three-wicket victory.
Finding a common denominator to explain or forecast upsets remains elusive. In three of the above examples, the defeated full members either looked out of sorts on the day or had broader issues, which affected their performances.
In the case of Ireland, O’Brien produced an innings of brilliance, which occasionally and unexpectedly occurs. In more normal patterns it is possible that, as associate nations improve over time with appropriate developmental support from their national boards, the propensity for giant-killing may increase. This is a possibility for the UAE in T20 cricket rather than ODIs, in which their recent performances have put the team in jeopardy of losing its ODI status.
Casualties in stampede at India cricket celebrations: Indian media
- Broadcasters showed police carrying young children in their arms rushing away from crowds
- India's NDTV broadcaster reported to have left at least 11 people dead
BENGALURU: A stampede broke out as a tightly packed crowd celebrated the sporting win of their home cricket team in the Indian city of Bengaluru, resulting in multiple deaths, local media reported on Wednesday.
AFP could not immediately confirm the death toll, which India's NDTV broadcaster reported to have left at least 11 people dead. The Times of India newspaper reported seven dead.
An AFP photographer saw an intense crush of crowds as a sea of people crammed the streets.
Broadcasters showed police carrying young children in their arms rushing away from crowds, who had seemingly fainted.
One unattended young man was sitting in an ambulance struggling to breathe.
Karnataka state's Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar said he was not able to immediately confirm deaths.
"This is not a controllable crowd," he said, speaking to reporters. "The police were finding it very difficult."
"I apologise to the people of Karnataka and Bengaluru," he said. "We wanted to take a procession, but the crowd was very uncontrollable... the crowd was so much."
Cricket fans had come out to celebrate and welcome home their heroes, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after they beat Punjab Kings in a roller-coaster Indian Premier League cricket final on Tuesday night.
An AFP reporter said the Bengaluru team had reached the cricket stadium in the city, where celebrations had previously been planned.
