Essex have vowed to move swiftly in issuing sanctions after an independent report found former players were subject to racist abuse and discriminatory treatment.
Katharine Newton KC was commissioned to investigate in 2021 after allegations of discrimination were made by former Essex players Jahid Ahmed, Maurice Chambers and Zoheb Sharif.
A summary report by Newton published by Essex on Friday found that reference to players’ ethnic, racial and religious origins was “entirely normalised and tolerated behaviour” within the club’s dressing room between the mid-1990s until around 2013, under the misguided belief that it was acceptable ‘banter’.
“Those at the receiving end of this treatment were too scared to speak up for fear of damaging their prospects of selection and progression,” Newton said in her report conclusions.
“In any event, there were no effective mechanisms for raising such concerns.”
Newton said one of the players was given the nickname ‘bomber’ following the September 11 terrorist attacks. She also found two of the players were referred to as a “curry muncher” and that the phrase was “commonly used” in the dressing room to describe individuals of South Asian heritage.
The third player was repeatedly subjected to racist treatment by a team-mate, who would taunt him by offering him bananas “in a manner which was unequivocally racist”. Newton found this happened in the dressing room, and on coach journeys back from matches.
The team’s coach “was aware” of this conduct, Newton concluded.
“Immediate action should have been taken against the individual; yet nothing was done to stop the behaviour,” Newton wrote.
“Given his position, the coach would have played an influential role in setting the tone and culture of the team. His failure to stop this behaviour sent a strong message to the squad and staff that this conduct had been condoned.”
Player Three also had a banana thrown at him down a flight of stairs by a player who was on trial at Essex.
Newton said her full report, which has been sent to Essex and also copied to the Cricket Regulator, named “most of the perpetrators”.
Jahid has previously criticised the length of time the report has taken, saying it has been “dragged out” to protect the accused.
Essex chair Anu Mohindru apologised to the victims and pledged the sanctioning process would not be prolonged.
“With regard to our sanction process, we don’t want to drag this out for anybody’s sake. That process has started,” Mohindru told the PA news agency.
One of Newton’s 15 recommendations was that sanctions for discriminatory behaviour must reflect the seriousness of the conduct, and that in determining such sanctions the club must “not be influenced by internal pressures such as the popularity/cricketing ability of the perpetrator”.
Mohindru said he “absolutely” agreed with the recommendation and added: “We have to look at the degrees as well – whether it’s done on a repeated basis, whether it’s a number of incidents, whether you have to take into account the senior level the person was holding at the time, the age of the person at the time, we’re talking 17, 18 years ago, there has to be proportionality to it. It’s not one size fits all.”
Newton’s report also found a lack of understanding of the needs of Muslim players at Essex.
It found too that the club’s former chairman, John Faragher, used racist language during a board meeting in 2017 and that the club failed to properly investigate a complaint about the language used.
The report also found Faragher “interfered in the election process by using intimidation to try and dissuade a candidate from standing for election” to the club’s general committee.
Mohindru said Essex would be “stupid” not to learn the lessons from the Yorkshire racism case, where an initial failure by the club to sanction any individuals led to the England and Wales Cricket Board stripping them of the right to host lucrative international fixtures at Headingley until governance changes were made.
He also said it would be “naive” of Essex to think that the club would avoid sanctions from the ongoing Cricket Regulator investigation into these same allegations.
“I am incredibly sorry (the victims) had to endure those things. It’s inexcusable,” Mohindru said.
“I would like to thank them for their bravery, it’s incredibly appreciated. I have to reiterate that we are not the club that we were. We still have work to do. There are 15 recommendations and we believe we’re at 80 per cent of those.”
Tape ball programme can help England find unorthodox talent – Richard Gould
The England and Wales Cricket Board hopes to unearth a new seam of talent beyond the game’s traditional league structure with a national tape ball scheme that allows players to thrive without “whites, willow and leather”.
The practice of using a soft ball wrapped in electrical tape to aid swing and variable bounce is a common one in Asia, where it has helped produce express pace bowlers like Haris Rauf, Shaheen Afridi and spinners such as Rashid Khan and Shakib-al-Hasan, but has been slow to enter the mainstream conversation in the United Kingdom.
The Chance to Shine charity has long pioneered tape ball cricket as part of its engagement hubs and now, with the ECB keen to live up to its lofty aspiration of becoming the most inclusive team sport in the country, it is at the heart of a new core cities programme designed to engage ‘diverse communities in urban areas’.
Speaking at a launch event where games were hosted in a warehouse space in Birmingham, ECB chief executive Richard Gould was optimistic about reaching out to those with an interest in cricket but limited access to the pavilions and prepared pitches in the club setup.
“We talk about clubs with picket fences around them. In the past that has been seen as the preserve of the ECB. We’ve missed a complete trick on that,” he said.
“When we talk about the recreational game we’re not just talking about Premier League clubs and village cricket clubs now. We’re talking about all forms of cricket that take place.
“You can play the game anywhere, any time, with anybody, in any environment you want. You don’t have to have whites, willow and leather to do it. You can just pick up a bat and a ball and have some fun.”
As well as fulfilling its remit of reaching out to all comers at a grassroots level, Gould also believes there are benefits to finding cricketers with different styles who have learned the game outside the traditional, private-school heavy pathways.
“Without doubt there are,” he said. “We have to get out and try to find the talent. More to the point, we have to try and find talent in areas that we haven’t normally looked for it.
“I do think county pathways will be looking to make sure they don’t miss out on this talent. It’s just about punching through all of our normal procedures and finding ways to both get people in the game and unearthing that talent which may be unorthodox and great.”
Meg Lanning: Exercise obsession and not enough fuel led to Australia retirement
Former Australia captain Meg Lanning revealed her “obsession” with exercise and not eating enough precipitated her surprise international retirement late last year.
Lanning was at the helm of one of the most dominant eras the sport has ever seen but she missed last year’s Ashes for medical reasons and pulled the plug on her Australia career in November.
She opened up about her hidden health issues on the Howie Games podcast, explaining that running up to 90 kilometres a week coupled with eating two small meals a day led to her dropping from 64kg to 57kg.
View this post on Instagram“I was over-exercising and under-fuelling,” the 32-year-old said. “It wasn’t a physical thing. I’ve always been really physically active and liked that side of it, but it became a bit of an obsession.
“I’d maybe eat a couple of meals a day if I was lucky but they weren’t significant. Initially it didn’t start off as a deliberate thing, it just became a bit of a new normal.
“But it slowly crept into conscious decisions because essentially I felt good.
“I wasn’t getting injured like everybody was telling me I was going to do. It sort of just spiralled and I was in denial, even though everybody kept telling me something wasn’t quite right.
“I was not in a place to be able to go on tour and play cricket and give the commitment levels that were required for that Ashes series, mentally and physically.”
Lanning, who led Australia to five World Cup titles in total and Commonwealth Games glory in 2022, said her struggle was not officially diagnosed as an eating disorder.
“It wasn’t labelled as that but I was exercising a lot and I wasn’t eating enough to fuel that – it was a bit out of whack,” Lanning said.
“It was a bit of control because I felt very out of control with what my future looked like. I felt like I was in control of that and that made me feel better.”
Lanning sought help from medical professionals after also struggling with insomnia and continues to play domestically, while she has been signed for London Spirit for The Hundred this year.
“I dreaded night time because I knew I would go to bed and not be able to sleep,” she said. “That would make me so mad. I would just get more angry with myself. If you can’t sleep, you can’t do anything.
“I feel like I’m in a good spot now. Cricket is still part of what I do. But I wasn’t cut out for the international touring schedule and what came with all of that.”
Yorkshire not in ECB’s new ‘Tier 1’ revamp of women’s professional game
Yorkshire will have to wait until 2027 to take part in the England and Wales Cricket Board’s new ‘Tier 1’ revamp of the women’s professional game, after eight other counties were selected to lead the way.
Durham, Essex, Hampshire, Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, Somerset, Surrey and Warwickshire have been chosen as hosts, with the governing body abolishing the existing regional structure in favour of alignment with the first-class counties.
The blow to Yorkshire, for whom this is a further setback after several turbulent years on and off the field, has been mitigated by a promise to bring them into an expanded competition in the third season.
Glamorgan have been given the same assurances and both will receive additional funding to help build their pathway.
But there will be no ‘Tier 1’ cricket at Lord’s in the foreseeable future, with MCC declining to put itself forward and Middlesex among those overlooked. Sussex have also been left on the outside looking in, despite a long and strong commitment to the women’s game.
They will be hoping to be included as the elite level continues to grow, with the ECB outlining plans to further expand to 12 teams by 2029.
ECB chief executive Richard Gould said: “I’d like to congratulate those counties who have been successful in their bids.
“I’m also delighted that in light of the support we have seen and the strength of the bids we have considered, we can accelerate our plans, including new top tier professional teams at Glamorgan and Yorkshire by 2027 with a further two being introduced by 2029.
“More professional teams means more women able to make a career out of being a cricketer, more role models to inspire future generations, and more of the country having a women’s professional team to follow nearby.
“I recognise today’s announcement will also be disappointing to those who haven’t been successful at this stage. But with the new three-tier structure we are introducing, there is still a huge opportunity for them to compete in the other tiers so together we can all realise the potential of women’s domestic cricket.”
Beth Barrett-Wild, the ECB’s director of the women’s professional game, praised the calibre of offers from around the country.
“At the start of this tender process we challenged the first-class counties to show us their vision for the women’s professional game and to demonstrate their desire and commitment to becoming one of our professional Tier 1 clubs,” she said.
“Over the last couple of months it’s been brilliant to see the time and energy that has gone into the submissions, and I’ve been hugely impressed by the quality and ambition of the bids.
“It’s clear that the game is united in wanting to take the women’s professional game forward. I’m energised about what comes next, for the counties themselves, for the players, for fans and for everyone who wants to see women’s cricket continue its accelerated trajectory.”
The ECB has put £5million per year of new funding into the women’s domestic set-up, rising to £8million when Yorkshire and Glamorgan come aboard.
It estimates a potential increase of 80 per cent in the number of professional female players.
There will be no promotion or relegation between 2025 and 2028, allowing the new three-tier system to bed in.
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