Rashid, who’s at the moment on tour with England’s white-ball squad in Bangladesh, joined the Cricket Self-discipline Fee listening to in London by way of Zoom on Thursday, the place he was cross-examined for 80 minutes by Vaughan’s authorized crew, led by Christopher Stoner KC.
Vaughan, who had himself been attributable to give proof however is now anticipated to look on Friday, is the one certainly one of seven former Yorkshire gamers – together with two fellow Ashes-winners in Matthew Hoggard and Tim Bresnan – prepared to reply costs that he, and the membership as a complete, breached ECB Directive 3.3 in bringing the sport into disrepute.
Vaughan categorically denies Rafiq’s declare – first made in an interview with Wisden.com in 2020 and subsequently repeated on the DCMS parliamentary hearings in November 2021 – that he had instructed the 4 Asian gamers in Yorkshire’s crew (Rafiq, Rashid, Ajmal Shahzad and Pakistan’s Rana Naved-ul-Hasan) that “there are too a lot of you lot, we have to have a phrase about that.”
In the middle of his cross-examination, Rashid instructed Mr Stoner that he remembered Vaughan making the remark because the crew took the sector for a Twenty20 Cup fixture towards Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge on June 22, 2009, however insisted that he had not thought-about it to be racist on the time, fairly a “poor try at humour”.
The precise wording of the comment got here below scrutiny from Vaughan’s crew, with Rafiq himself admitting below his personal cross-examination later within the day that he had made a “clear mistake” in his witness assertion, the place he had initially remembered the phrases as “there’s too a lot of you lot, we have to do one thing about it“.
Rashid was additionally requested about two different witness statements submitted to the listening to, from his former team-mate Shahzad – who was on the sector on the time of the alleged comment however has not corroborated it – and Liz Neto, a former HR supervisor at Yorkshire.
Each statements recommended that Rashid had been coerced into talking out towards Vaughan, with Shahzad claiming that the pair had spoken in December and that Rashid was “very uncomfortable with the place this was going”.
“He wished to nip it within the bud sooner fairly than later as a result of fairly frankly he was uncomfortable with how a lot Rafiq knew about Adil,” Shahzad’s assertion learn. “And that sooner or later [Rafiq] was able to, you already know, utilizing one thing that he knew about [Rashid] personally towards him.”
Neto, in the meantime, claimed that Rashid had phoned her “on multiple event … when the media furore was at its zenith.
“He appeared distressed and indicated to me he was being pressured to corroborate allegations of racism then being made though he didn’t need to.
“He stated to me that he couldn’t bear in mind the actual remark he was being requested to say he witnessed, nor something racist being stated in his presence. He stated to me he had instructed Mr Rafiq, ‘Regardless of what number of instances you inform me I heard it, Azeem, I can’t bear in mind listening to it.’ “
Rashid denied each variations of occasions.
He was additionally quizzed about his personal witness assertion, which outlined particulars of a fish-and-chip-shop enterprise that Rashid and Rafiq had entered into “between October 2021 and October 2022”. Requested if this might have been a think about any coercion, Rashid described himself as a “silent accomplice” within the association, including that he had not sought to recoup his funding when the enterprise folded.
“I’m not supporting Azeem as a result of he’s a pal or due to any shared enterprise curiosity,” Rashid stated. “I’m giving proof based mostly on what I had heard.”
Mr Stoner additionally referenced a press release that Rafiq had given to Yorkshire’s authentic investigation into his claims of institutional racism on the membership, as carried out by the legislation agency Squire Patton Boggs. In that, Rafiq admitted that Rashid had not remembered Vaughan’s alleged remark, including “Adil has had a lack of reminiscence . . . God bless him”. Once more, Rashid denied that model of occasions.
Later within the day, Rafiq was pressed on his long-term relationship with Yorkshire – specifically a pair of incidents early in his profession, when he was censured in 2010 for an outburst on Twitter towards his then England-Beneath 19 coach, John Abraham, and likewise for his position in 2008 in an deserted T20 quarter-final towards Durham, after it was found that, as a Pakistan-born participant, he had been incorrectly registered with the membership.
The latter incident, he says, led to questions “about whether or not I used to be an unlawful immigrant,” and he disagreed with ideas that Yorkshire had accepted duty. “It induced press intrusion and I missed some essential cricket for my improvement.”
The listening to continues.
Andrew Miller is UK editor of ESPNcricinfo. @miller_cricket
