Rashid, who’s these days on excursion with England’s white-ball squad in Bangladesh, joined the Cricket Discipline Commission listening to in London by the use of Zoom on Thursday, the place he used to be move-tested for 80 mins by means of Vaughan’s felony staff, led by means of Christopher Stoner KC.
Vaughan, who had himself been due to give proof however is now anticipated to seem on Friday, is the one certainly one of seven former Yorkshire avid gamers – together with two fellow Ashes-winners in Matthew Hoggard and Tim Bresnan – prepared to solution fees that he, and the membership as an entire, 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 due to this fact repeated on the DCMS parliamentary hearings in November 2021 – that he had informed the 4 Asian avid gamers in Yorkshire’s staff (Rafiq, Rashid, Ajmal Shahzad and Pakistan’s Rana Naved-ul-Hasan) that “there are too many of you lot, we need to have a word about that.”
In the process his move-exam, Rashid informed Mr Stoner that he remembered Vaughan making the comment because the staff took the sector for a Twenty20 Cup fixture in opposition to Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge on June 22, 2009, however insisted that he had no longer regarded as it to be racist on the time, moderately a “poor attempt at humour”.
The actual wording of the observation got here beneath scrutiny from Vaughan’s staff, with Rafiq himself admitting beneath his personal move-exam later within the day that he had made a “clear mistake” in his witness commentary, the place he had to start with remembered the phrases as “there’s too many of you lot, we need to do something about it“.
Rashid used to be additionally requested about two different witness statements submitted to the listening to, from his former staff-mate Shahzad – who used to be at the box on the time of the alleged observation however has no longer corroborated it – and Liz Neto, a former HR supervisor at Yorkshire.
Both statements prompt that Rashid have been coerced into talking out in opposition to Vaughan, with Shahzad claiming that the pair had spoken in December and that Rashid used to be “very uncomfortable with where this was going”.
“He wanted to nip it in the bud sooner rather than later because quite frankly he was uncomfortable with how much Rafiq knew about Adil,” Shahzad’s commentary learn. “And that at some point [Rafiq] was capable of, you know, using something that he knew about [Rashid] personally against him.”
Neto, in the meantime, claimed that Rashid had phoned her “on more than one occasion … when the media furore was at its zenith.
“He seemed distressed and indicated to me he used to be being careworn to corroborate allegations of racism then being made even supposing he didn’t need to.
“He said to me that he could not remember the particular comment he was being asked to say he witnessed, nor anything racist being said in his presence. He said to me he had told Mr Rafiq, ‘No matter how many times you tell me I heard it, Azeem, I cannot remember hearing it.’ “
Rashid denied each variations of occasions.
He used to be additionally quizzed about his personal witness commentary, which defined main points of a fish-and-chip-store industry that Rashid and Rafiq had entered into “between October 2021 and October 2022”. Asked if this may have been a think about any coercion, Rashid described himself as a “silent partner” within the association, including that he had no longer sought to recoup his funding when the industry folded.
“I am not supporting Azeem because he is a friend or because of any shared business interest,” Rashid mentioned. “I am giving evidence based on what I had heard.”
Mr Stoner additionally referenced a commentary that Rafiq had given to Yorkshire’s unique investigation into his claims of institutional racism on the membership, as performed by means of the regulation company Squire Patton Boggs. In that, Rafiq admitted that Rashid had no longer remembered Vaughan’s alleged comment, including “Adil has had a loss of memory . . . God bless him”. Again, Rashid denied that model of occasions.
Later within the day, Rafiq used to be pressed on his lengthy-time period courting with Yorkshire – particularly a couple of incidents early in his occupation, when he used to be censured in 2010 for an outburst on Twitter in opposition to his then England-Under 19 trainer, John Abraham, and in addition for his position in 2008 in an deserted T20 quarter-ultimate in opposition to Durham, after it used to be came upon that, as a Pakistan-born participant, he have been incorrectly registered with the membership.
The latter incident, he says, led to questions “about whether I was an illegal immigrant,” and he disagreed with ideas that Yorkshire had accredited duty. “It caused press intrusion and I missed some crucial cricket for my development.”
The listening to continues.
Andrew Miller is UK editor of ESPNcricinfo. @miller_cricket