37 Facts About Azeem Rafiq

Azeem Rafiq is an English cricketer who played professionally in England for Yorkshire County Cricket Club.

Azeem Rafiq captained the England under-15 and under-19 sides, and in 2012 became the youngest man to captain a Yorkshire side as well as the first person of Asian origin to do so.

In September 2020, Azeem Rafiq made accusations of racism and bullying in Yorkshire.

Azeem Rafiq was born in Karachi, Pakistan, in 1991, one of five children, and moved to the United Kingdom in 2001.

Azeem Rafiq grew up in Barnsley in South Yorkshire and attended Holgate School in the town; as a child he played cricket for Barnsley Cricket Club and Yorkshire schools sides.

Azeem Rafiq was a member of Yorkshire's cricket academy and captained the England under-15 side in 2006.

Azeem Rafiq was Yorkshire's Junior Performer of the Year in 2007 and the club's academy player of the year in 2008 as well as being awarded a Brian Johnston Memorial Trust scholarship.

Azeem Rafiq made his Second XI debut for the county during the same year.

Azeem Rafiq made his senior debut for Yorkshire's First XI in a Twenty20 Cup match against Nottinghamshire in June 2008.

Azeem Rafiq bowled two overs in the match which Yorkshire won.

At the time however, Azeem Rafiq did not hold a UK passport and so did not qualify as a domestic player.

Azeem Rafiq captained the county's academy side in a series of matches in Abu Dhabi during the winter and toured South Africa with the England under-19 side in early 2009.

Azeem Rafiq made his first-class and List-A debuts for Yorkshire during the 2009 season; aged 18, he scored a century for the side in his second first-class match.

Azeem Rafiq played for England under-19s against Bangladesh during the summer, taking six wickets in an inning at Scarborough and another five-wicket haul at Derby in the two under-19 Test matches before captaining the side during the under-19 One Day International matches which followed.

Azeem Rafiq was captain of the side during the under-19 tour of Bangladesh later in the year, but gave up the role halfway through the ODI series, before being re-appointed to captain England at the Under-19 World Cup held in New Zealand in early 2010.

Later in 2010 Azeem Rafiq was dropped from the side for breaking mid-match curfews during a series of matches against Sri Lanka under-19s; he responded by publishing an attack against the side's new coach John Abrahams on his Twitter account, deleting the tweets once he realised they were publicly viewable.

Azeem Rafiq played three County Championship and five Clydesdale Bank 40 matches for the county, taking 11 wickets in what was considered to have been a successful spell at the club, before returning to Yorkshire to play in their Twenty20 Cup campaign later in the season.

The side won five of the six matches he was captain for and Yorkshire reached the final of the competition, losing to Hampshire with Gale back in the side as captain; Azeem Rafiq took one wicket in the final.

Towards the end of the 2012 season, Azeem Rafiq was instrumental in Yorkshire's promotion back to Division One of the County Championship.

Azeem Rafiq played in ten of the county's 16 Championship matches during the season and took 26 wickets.

Dobell wrote that he considered that Azeem Rafiq had a chance of playing for England at some point and that "he has a golden future".

Azeem Rafiq spent time with England development squads, but a knee injury caused him problems, and he played rarely for Yorkshire other than in Twenty20 matches.

Azeem Rafiq came close to signing for Derbyshire at the start of the 2015 season, but the issues with his bowling action continued to cause problems.

Azeem Rafiq impressed Gale and was asked to play a Second XI match; he was back in the county's First XI the following week, being named player of the match in the side's first win in the 2016 T20 Blast.

Azeem Rafiq took 24 wickets during the season, 15 of them in the t20Blast, and was awarded his county cap.

Azeem Rafiq continued to play for the county in 2017, taking a five-wicket haul in a Twenty20 match for the first time in August, playing in all competitions and was the county's leading wicket-taker in the One-Day Cup.

Azeem Rafiq spent some time playing in Pakistan in 2018, including making a single first-class appearance for Sui Southern Gas Company in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, before playing minor counties cricket for Lincolnshire County Cricket Club in 2019.

Azeem Rafiq is married and he and his wife have a son and a daughter.

Azeem Rafiq opened a fish and chip shop in Barnsley in 2021 and has continued to gain qualifications to coach cricket since leaving the professional game.

In 2020, in an interview with Taha Hashim of Wisden, Azeem Rafiq revealed how he experienced racism, harassment and bullying during his time playing for Yorkshire.

The interview was initially about his work during the COVID-19 pandemic and his new business, but when Hashim asked about his early career Azeem Rafiq opened up about the racism he had encountered at the club.

Azeem Rafiq spoke about having an "openly racist" captain at one point and how on one occasion a senior player had commented on the number of Asian players at the club, suggesting that "we need to have a word about that".

Azeem Rafiq described how he initially tried to fit in with the culture within the club and had done things that "as a Muslim, I now look back on and regret", and went on to describe specific instances of racist behaviour and that he had first reported his concerns about behaviour by people in the club in 2017 but felt that he had been ignored.

Azeem Rafiq had first raised concerns about incidents of racism in Yorkshire in August 2018 following the stillbirth of his first child.

The tribunal took place in June 2021 and failed to resolve, with Azeem Rafiq refusing to accept what has been reported as "a six-figure sum" which was dependent on him signing a non-disclosure agreement which would have restricted his ability to speak about the case.

Azeem Rafiq criticised the statement made by Yorkshire, stating in an interview with the BBC Asian Network that he believed that it downplayed racism by labelling it as "inappropriate behaviour".

Azeem Rafiq responded to the announcement that Yorkshire would not be disciplining anyone at the club, by accusing the club of being more interested in protecting its reputation rather than addressing allegations of racism.