Azeem Rafiq ( ur, عظیم رفیق; born 27 February 1991) is a British Asian

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er who played professionally in England for

Yorkshire County Cricket Club Yorkshire County Cricket Club is one of 18 first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Yorkshire. Yorkshire are the most successful team in English cricketing hi ...

. A right arm

off-spin Off spin is a type of finger spin bowling in cricket. A bowler who uses this technique is called an off spinner. Off spinners are right-handed spin bowlers who use their fingers to spin the ball. Their normal delivery is an off break, which s ...

bowler, Rafiq played for the county between 2008 and 2014 and 2016 and 2018, making his senior debut at the age of 17. He captained the England under-15 and under-19 sides, and in 2012 became the youngest man to captain a Yorkshire side as well as the first person of Asian origin to do so.Hashim, Taha (17 August 2020
The extraordinary life of Azeem Rafiq

Wisden ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a ...

online. Retrieved 7 September 2020. In September 2020, Rafiq made accusations of racism and bullying at Yorkshire. An independent report found that a number of his accusations were true and the case became a major media story in the United Kingdom. It led to a number of resignations at the club and was the subject of investigations by the

England and Wales Cricket Board The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is the Sports governing body, national governing body of cricket in England and Wales. It was formed on 1 January 1997 as a single governing body to combine the roles formerly fulfilled by the Test and ...

(ECB) and Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee in the

British parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative supremacy ...

Early life

Rafiq was born in

Karachi Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former cap ...

, Pakistan, in 1991, and moved to England in 2001. He grew up in

Barnsley Barnsley () is a market town in South Yorkshire, England. As the main settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley and the fourth largest settlement in South Yorkshire. In Barnsley, the population was 96,888 while the wider Borough has ...

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a ceremonial and metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. The county has four council areas which are the cities of Doncaster and Sheffield as well as the boroughs of Barnsley and Rotherham. In N ...

and attended Holgate School in the town;Westerby, John (8 July 2008
Azeem Rafiq bowls Yorkshire’s costliest overs
''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

''. Retrieved 6 November 2021. as a child he played cricket for

Barnsley Cricket Club Barnsley Woolley Miners Cricket Club members play in the Yorkshire ECB County Premier Leaguebr> the club won the league title in 2006 for the first time in its history. The club is based at Shaw Lane (Cricket Ground), which hosted four Benson and He ...

and for Yorkshire schools sides.Hopps, David (2008
Yorkshire throw a warm arm around 'sloughened' Rafiq
''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', 9 July 2008. Retrieved 6 November 2021.Azeem Rafiq

CricInfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a d ...

. Retrieved 14 August 2012. He was a member of Yorkshire's cricket academy and captained the England under-15 side in 2006. The same year, Rafiq was the recipient of a

Sport England Sport England is a non-departmental public body under the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Its role is to build the foundations of a community sport system by working with national governing bodies of sport, and other funded par ...

award and came to the attention of England bowling coach David Parsons, who earmarked him as a possible future

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

bowler.Brett, Oliver (26 June 2007
Barnsley's teenage spin sensation

BBC Sport BBC Sport is the sports division of the BBC, providing national sports coverage for BBC television, radio and online. The BBC holds the television and radio UK broadcasting rights to several sports, broadcasting the sport live or alongside flag ...

. Retrieved 8 July 2008. He was Yorkshire's Junior Performer of the Year in 2007 and the club's academy player of the year in 2008 as well as being awarded a Brian Johnston Memorial Trust scholarship.News about former Johneers scholars
Brian Johnston Memorial Trust, 2011. Archived 15 June 2011. Retrieved 4 November 2021. He made his Second XI debut for the county during the same year.
CricketArchive. Retrieved 4 November 2021.

Senior cricket career

Rafiq made his senior debut for Yorkshire's First XI in a

Twenty20 Cup The T20 Blast, currently named the Vitality Blast for sponsorship reasons, is a professional Twenty20 cricket competition for English and Welsh first-class counties. The competition was established by the England and Wales Cricket Board (E ...

match against

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...

in June 2008. He bowled two overs in the match which Yorkshire won.Ward, John (27 June 2008
Rashid stars to put Yorkshire through

. Retrieved 4 November 2021. At the time however, Rafiq did not hold a UK passport and so did not qualify as a domestic player. Yorkshire, who were only allowed to register one overseas player for the competition, had not deregistered their other overseas player and, as a result, were expelled from the competition.Player row sparks Twenty20 chaos

, 8 July 2008. Retrieved 4 November 2021.Yorkshire launch Twenty20 appeal

, 11 July 2008. Retrieved 4 November 2021.Warner, David (2009) ''

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a ...

'', 2009. Reprinted in Hamilton, Duncan (ed) (2011) ''Wisden on Yorkshire'', pp. 194–195. London: Bloomsbury.
Available online
Retrieved 6 November 2021.) In August Rafiq was given special dispensation by the

(ECB) to play for Yorkshire for the remainder of the season whilst his application for British citizenship was being processed;Azeem Rafiq available for Yorkshire

, 21 August 2008. Retrieved 6 November 2021. Rafiq's family had begun the process of applying for citizenship some time before, but the process had been "prolonged" by the Home Office. His citizenship was confirmed later in the yearAfter a nightmare 2008, Tykes spinner’s star is on the rise
''

The Press ''The Press'' is a daily newspaper published in Christchurch, New Zealand owned by media business Stuff Ltd. First published in 1861, the newspaper is the largest circulating daily in the South Island and publishes Monday to Saturday. One comm ...

'', 6 January 2009. Retrieved 6 November 2021. and in October he signed a three-year senior contract with Yorkshire.Rafiq signs three-year Yorkshire deal

, 3 October 2008. Retrieved 6 November 2021. He captained the county's academy side in a series of matches in Abu Dhabi during the winter and toured South Africa with the England under-19 side in early 2009.

England under-19 captaincy

Rafiq made his first-class and List A debuts for Yorkshire during the 2009 season; aged 18, he scored a century for the side in his second first-class match.Karachi-born Azeem Rafiq makes Yorkshire history
''

Dawn Dawn is the time that marks the beginning of twilight before sunrise. It is recognized by the appearance of indirect sunlight being scattered in Earth's atmosphere, when the centre of the Sun's disc has reached 18° below the observer's hori ...

'', 23 July 2012. Retrieved 6 November 2021.Ward, John (19 June 2009
Rafiq shows talent with a ton

. Retrieved 6 November 2021. He played for England under-19s against

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

during the summer, taking six wickets in an innings at

Scarborough Scarborough or Scarboro may refer to: People * Scarborough (surname) * Earl of Scarbrough Places Australia * Scarborough, Western Australia, suburb of Perth * Scarborough, New South Wales, suburb of Wollongong * Scarborough, Queensland, su ...

and another

five-wicket haul In cricket, a five-wicket haul (also known as a "five–for" or "fifer") occurs when a bowler takes five or more wickets in a single innings. This is regarded by critics as a notable achievement, equivalent to a century from a batsman. Takin ...

at Derby in the two under-19 Test matchesEngland Under-19 cruise to ten-wicket win

, 8 July 2009. Retrieved 6 November 2021.Bangladesh survive Rafiq spell

, 15 July 2009. Retrieved 6 November 2021. before captaining the side during the under-19

One Day International A One Day International (ODI) is a form of limited overs cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of overs, currently 50, with the game lasting up to 9 hours. The Cricket World C ...

matches which followed. He was captain of the side during the under-19 tour of Bangladesh later in the year, but gave up the role half-way through the ODI series, before being re-appointed to captain England at the Under-19 World Cup held in New Zealand in early 2010.Azeem Rafiq reinstated as captain

, 16 December 2009. Retrieved 6 November 2021. Following the tournament, the team's then-coach Mark Robinson called Rafiq a "fierce competitor" and an "outstanding captain" who had "led the team really, really well".Coach sees first-class talent in Under-19s

, 30 January 2010. Retrieved 6 November 2021. Later in 2010, however, Rafiq was dropped from the side for breaking mid-match curfews during a series of matches against Sri Lanka under-19s; he responded by publishing an attack against the side's new coach John Abrahams on his

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

account, deleting the tweets once he realised they were publicly viewable.Andrew Strauss warns players about using social media

, 29 July 2010. Retrieved 29 July 2010. Yorkshire suspended him Yorkshire suspend Azeem Rafiq following Twitter rant

, 29 July 2010. Retrieved 4 November 2021. and the ECB later gave him a one-month ban from all cricket as a result of the tweets.Twitter tirade lands Azeem Rafiq one-month ECB ban

, 4 August 2010. Retrieved 4 August 2010.
Archived version
(4 August 2010). Retrieved 4 August 2010.)Rafiq suspended for one month after Twitter tirade

, 4 August 2010. Retrieved 6 November 2021.

Loan to Derbyshire

After spending the winter playing

grade cricket Grade cricket, also known as Premier Cricket is the name of the senior inter-club or district cricket competitions in each of the Australian states and territories. The term may refer to: *Victorian Premier Cricket * NSW Premier Cricket * Queens ...

in Australia, Rafiq spent a month at the start of the 2011 season on loan at Derbyshire County Cricket Club in order to play regular first team cricket. He played three

County Championship The County Championship (referred to as the LV= Insurance County Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales and is organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). It bec ...

and five

Clydesdale Bank 40 The ECB40, last known as the Yorkshire Bank 40 (YB40) for sponsorship reasons, was a forty-over limited overs cricket competition for the English first-class counties. It began in the 2010 English cricket season as a replacement for the Pro40 a ...

matches for the county, taking 11 wickets in what was considered to have been a successful spell at the club, before returning to Yorkshire to play in their Twenty20 Cup campaign later in the season.Hardcastle, Graham (12 June 2011
Derbyshire skipper Luke Sutton sings Azeem Rafiq's praises
''

Telegraph & Argus The ''Telegraph & Argus'' is the daily newspaper for Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. It is published six times each week, from Monday to Saturday inclusive. The newspaper has offices in Newhall Way, Bradford, from where its journalists work ...

''. Retrieved 6 November 2021.Azeem Rafiq joins Derbyshire on loan

, 23 April 2011. Retrieved 6 November 2021. Speaking after the loan, Rafiq said that he had gained confidence from his time at Derbyshire and "felt loved and wanted out there".Hardcastle, Graham (16 June 2011
Azeem Rafiq's loan spell to benefit Yorkshire
''

''. Retrieved 6 November 2021. At the end of the season he signed a two-year contract extension with Yorkshire after the club was relegated from Division One of the County Championship.Yorkshire re-shuffle begins

, 22 September 2011. Retrieved 6 November 2021.

Yorkshire captain and release

Azeem Rafiq 2017 Yorks v Hampshire bowling

Following the dropping of fellow spin bowler

Adil Rashid Adil Usman Rashid (born 17 February 1988) is an English cricketer who plays for England in One Day International (ODI) and Twenty20 International (T20I) cricket, and previously played for the Test team. In domestic cricket, he represents Yo ...

, Rafiq came back into Yorkshire's County Championship team in 2012, the first time he had played in the county's Championship side since 2010.Winter, Alex (29 May 2012
Rashid dropped by Yorkshire

. Retrieved 6 November 2021. In June, he captained Yorkshire in six matches in the 2012 Twenty20 Cup when

Andrew Gale Andrew William Gale (born 28 November 1983) is an English cricket coach and former first-class cricketer, who was first XI coach of Yorkshire County Cricket Club from 2016 to 2021. He also co-owns Pro Coach Cricket Academy, with his business par ...

was injured, becoming the youngest captain in the county's history and the first player of Asian origin to captain the Yorkshire side.Culley, Jon (24 July 2012
Azeem Rafiq shows his credentials

. Retrieved 6 November 2021. The side won five of the six matches he was captain forAldred, Tanya (14 November 2021
Azeem Rafiq: from England hopeful to revealing cricket’s racism
''

''. Retrieved 14 November 2021. and Yorkshire reached the final of the

competition Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indivi ...

, losing to

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

with Gale back in the side as captain; Rafiq took one wicket in the final.Final (N), Cardiff, Aug 25 2012, Friends Life t20

. Retrieved 6 November 2021. Towards the end of the 2012 season, Rafiq was instrumental in Yorkshire's promotion back to Division One of the County Championship. He played in ten of the county's 16 Championship matches during the season and took 26 wickets. He took three wickets and scored important runs in a victory over

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

in a rain-affected match at Scarborough at the end of August,Smith, Les (31 August 2012
McGrath's wise head serves Yorkshire well

, 31 August 2012. Retrieved 6 November 2021.Yorkshire beat Gloucestershire to go second

, 31 August 2012. Retrieved 6 November 2021. and against

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

in September scored two half-centuries and took eight wickets in the match, including a five-wicket haul, to help guarantee Yorkshire's promotion.Dobell, George (13 September 2012
McGrath gets Yorkshire over the line

. Retrieved 6 November 2021.Dobell, George (14 September 2012
Yorkshire secure redemption after promotion

. Retrieved 6 November 2021. Journalist George Dobell was impressed with Rafiq's "grit and determination" whilst batting in the first inningsDobell, George (11 September 2012
Rafiq and Sidebottom show Yorkshire grit

. Retrieved 6 November 2021. and with his bowling skill throughout the match.Dobell, George (12 September 2012
Yorkshire take control and lead

. Retrieved 6 November 2021. Rafiq's five-wicket haul was the first of his senior career and his match figures of 8/115 were his best in first-class cricket. Dobell wrote that he considered that Rafiq had a chance of playing for England at some point and that "he has a golden future". The following season, Rafiq captained the side again in Twenty20 matches in Gale's absenceBrooks' five demolishes Leicestershire

, 9 July 2013. Retrieved 6 November 2021.Hardcastle, Graham (15 July 2013
Rafiq leads by example as Yorkshire secure win
''

The Northern Echo ''The Northern Echo'' is a regional daily morning newspaper based in the town of Darlington in North East England, serving mainly southern County Durham and northern Yorkshire. The paper covers national as well as regional news. In 2007, its t ...

''. Retrieved 6 November 2021. and took a five-wicket haul in a one-day match against the touring Bangladesh A side.Rafiq five leads Yorkshire to thrilling win

, 9 August 2013. Retrieved 6 November 2021. He spent time with England development squads, but a knee injury caused him problems, and he played rarely for Yorkshire other than in Twenty20 matches.Warner, David (2014) Yorkshire: Everything but the crown, ''

'', 2014, p. 686. London: Bloomsbury. Despite his role in the Twenty20 side, the lack of regular cricket throughout the season led to him choosing to leave the county at the end of the 2014 season, aged 23 and with his bowling action breaking down.Hopps, David (1 July 2016
Yorkshire squeeze Roses win as Carver clings on

. Retrieved 6 November 2021.Dobell, George (16 August 2014
Frustrated Rafiq to leave Yorkshire

. Retrieved 6 November 2021.Kelly, Francis (5 April 2017
Rafiq determined to make second coming count

. Retrieved 4 November 2021. Speaking in 2017, he said that he had "lost a lot of confidence in my body and confidence in myself as a person" and did not play professional cricket for almost two years.

Return to Yorkshire and second release

Rafiq came close to signing for Derbyshire at the start of the 2015 season, but the issues with his bowling action continued to cause problems.Hopps, David (10 July 2016
Rashid to the fore as Yorkshire cling on

. Retrieved 6 November 2021. After playing club cricket for Barnsley and coaching in Dubai during the English winter, Rafiq bowled at the new Yorkshire coach (his old captain, Andrew Gale) in a net session in 2016. He impressed Gale and was asked to play a Second XI match; he was back in the county's First XI the following week, being named player of the match in the side's first win in the 2016 T20 Blast. He took 24 wickets during the season, 15 of them in the t20Blast, and was awarded his

county cap In sport, a cap is a player's appearance in a game at international level. The term dates from the practice in the United Kingdom of awarding a cap to every player in an international match of rugby football and association football. In the ea ...

. He continued to play for the county in 2017, taking a five-wicket haul in a Twenty20 match for the first time in August, playing in all competitions and was the county's leading wicket-taker in the One-Day Cup.Hopps, David (17 August 2021
Lyth plunders highest score in English T20 to inspire Yorkshire

. Retrieved 6 November 2021.Hafez, Shamoon (4 September 2020
Azeem Rafiq: Yorkshire's former spinner on 'dreading every second' of playing for the county

. Retrieved 7 November 2021. The following year, however, he played only in Twenty20 matches and was released by Yorkshire at the end of the season, with the club citing a limited budget.Yorkshire's Azeem Rafiq opens up about personal tragedy in difficult 2018 season
''

The Yorkshire Post ''The Yorkshire Post'' is a daily broadsheet newspaper, published in Leeds in Yorkshire, England. It primarily covers stories from Yorkshire although its masthead carries the slogan "Yorkshire's National Newspaper". It was previously owned by ...

'', 9 September 2018. Retrieved 4 November 2021.Dobell, George (2 September 2020
Azeem Rafiq was 'on brink of suicide' after experiencing racism at Yorkshire

. Retrieved 4 November 2021. He spent some time playing in Pakistan in 2018, including making a single first-class appearance for

Sui Southern Gas Company The Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC), () formerly known as Sui Gas Transmission Company Limited, is a Pakistani natural gas supply company based in Karachi, Pakistan. History It was formed in 1955. The company in its present shape was formed o ...

in the

Quaid-e-Azam Trophy The Quaid-e-Azam Trophy is a domestic first-class cricket competition in Pakistan. With few exceptions, it has been staged annually since it was first played during the 1953–54 season. Domestic cricket in Pakistan has undergone many reorganis ...

, before playing

minor counties cricket The National Counties, known as the Minor Counties before 2020, are the cricketing counties of England and Wales that do not have first-class status. The game is administered by the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), which comes unde ...

for

Lincolnshire County Cricket Club Lincolnshire County Cricket Club is one of twenty minor county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Lincolnshire. The team is currently a member of the Minor Counties Champio ...

in 2019.First-class Matches played by Azeem Rafiq

Pakistan Cricket Board The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is a sports governing body for cricket in Pakistan responsible for controlling and organising all tours and matches undertaken by the Pakistan national cricket team. A member of the International Cricket Coun ...

. Retrieved 5 November 2021.

Personal life

Rafiq is married and he and his wife have a child. Their first child was

stillborn Stillbirth is typically defined as fetal death at or after 20 or 28 weeks of pregnancy, depending on the source. It results in a baby born without signs of life. A stillbirth can result in the feeling of guilt or grief in the mother. The ter ...

in 2018 after his wife had endured a difficult pregnancy, and shortly afterwards Rafiq was released by Yorkshire; he has spoken of the impact of his release, the way he was treated at the club and the stillbirth had on his mental health and that he considered suicide.Rafiq opens Matki Chai

Professional Cricketers' Association The Professional Cricketers' Association is the representative body of past and present first-class cricketers in England and Wales, founded in 1967 by former England fast bowler Fred Rumsey (when it was known as the Cricketers' Association). In t ...

, 20 July 2020. Retrieved 6 November 2021. After the stillbirth the couple spent some time in Pakistan, with Rafiq on compassionate leave from Yorkshire. It was at this time that he first made Yorkshire aware of incidents of racism at the club.Morgan, Tim, Rumsby, Ben (10 November 2021
Exclusive: Yorkshire chiefs missed chance for amicable deal after ‘washing hands’ of Azeem Rafiq, says report
''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

''. Retrieved 15 November 2021. During the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

lockdown in 2020, Rafiq and his sister began to provide food for

National Health Service The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...

and other key-workers in Barnsley and to raise money for the local

hospice Hospice care is a type of health care that focuses on the palliation of a terminally ill patient's pain and symptoms and attending to their emotional and spiritual needs at the end of life. Hospice care prioritizes comfort and quality of life by ...

. This led to the siblings setting up a tea-shop business based out of the shipping container. He opened a fish and chip shop in Barnsley in 2021Dobell, George (16 November 2021
Azeem Rafiq might have lost a career to racism, but his crucial legacy is playing out in real time
''

The Cricketer ''The Cricketer'' is a monthly English cricket magazine providing writing and photography from international, county and club cricket. The magazine was founded in 1921 by Sir Pelham Warner, an ex-England captain turned cricket writer. Warner ...

'' (online). Retrieved 16 November 2021. and has continued to gain qualifications to coach cricket since leaving the professional game.

Racism at Yorkshire

In 2020, in an interview with Taha Hashim of ''

'', Rafiq revealed how he experienced racism, harassment and bullying during his time playing for

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...

. The interview was initially about his work during the COVID-19 pandemic and his new business, but when Hashim asked about his early career Rafiq opened up about the racism he had encountered at the club. He spoke about having an "openly racist" captain at one point and how on one occasion a senior player had commented on the number of Asian players at the club, suggesting that "we need to have a word about that". In further interviews with

, the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

...

Early life

Senior cricket career

England under-19 captaincy

Loan to Derbyshire

Yorkshire captain and release

Return to Yorkshire and second release

Personal life

Racism at Yorkshire

Investigations and legal action

Squire Patton Boggs report

Reactions to the report findings

Impacts of the case

Allegations against Rafiq

Notes

References

External links