Scottish cricket repeated damaging mistakes of Yorkshire’s racism inquiry

John Blain, the former Scotland international, is the only individual that connects cricket’s racism sagas north of the border in Scotland with south in Yorkshire, but the similarities between the two do not end there. As with the subsequent fallout from the Yorkshire case, there has also been a rush to judgment in Scotland over a crisis that engulfed the sport.

Emboldened by the testimony of Azeem Rafiq before the Department for Culture, Media and Sport select committee in November 2021, two former Scotland cricketers, Majid Haq and Qasim Sheikh, made allegations of racism during their time with the national team. Sport Scotland then commissioned a report by Plan4Sport, which describes itself as a “company supporting a wide range of public and private sports organisations