Lord Patel says individuals trying to ‘derail’ reform at Yorkshire CCC

Lord Kamlesh Patel says a group of individuals are seeking to delay and derail reform at Yorkshire because they believe the club are being “sacrificed on the altar of Black Lives Matter”.

The club were forced to cancel a meeting on Wednesday night which had been seen as key in bringing about a culture change in the wake of the Azeem Rafiq racism crisis and prompting the England and Wales Cricket Board to restore their right to host international matches at Headingley.

The extraordinary general meeting of members was due to include a vote on significant changes to the board structure, but was cancelled because the club discovered it had not been properly called. A club statement issued on Wednesday said the former leadership had failed to file amended club rules with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Robin Smith, the former county chair, told the Yorkshire Post that he believed that same failure to file the updated rules to the FCA meant Lord Patel’s chairmanship of the club was also invalid, something which is now the subject of a legal dispute.

Smith, who served as Yorkshire chair between 2002 and 2005 and again between 2018 and 2020 and was chair of the Yorkshire Cricket Foundation until late last year, also said Lord Patel could therefore be personally liable financially for the settlement paid to Rafiq and for any costs arising from the dismissal of a group of staff in December.

Lord Patel said in a statement issued to the PA news agency: “It is plain that, when I joined the club in November, it had a wealth of legacy problems inherited from previous leadership, of which former chairman Robin Smith was a part.

“I made a conscious decision that we would focus on a positive future for Yorkshire and remediate the