He did not comment on the select committee allegations. In the statement Rafiq also alleged that Ballance had drugs and alcohol issues that were covered up by Yorkshire via missed tests. I did my best to try to fit in, but it happened so much that at one point in 2012, I remember crying outside a nightclub after his constant racist taunting.” He would constantly talk down to me and make racist jokes, designed to undermine me and make me feel small, like coming up and interrupting when I was talking to girls in a club, saying ‘don’t talk to him, he’s a Paki’. In his witness statement to an employment tribunal, Rafiq said: “The constant racist banter from Gary became too much. “Anyone who came across Gary would know that was a phrase he would use to describe people of colour.” It was an open secret in the England dressing room,” he claimed. “‘Kevin’ was something Gary used to describe anyone of colour in a very derogatory manner. Asked by the committee chairman, Julian Knight, about the term “Kevin”, Rafiq said it was an offensive, racist one that reached the very top of the game. He stated that everyone saw what was going on but “no one did anything about it”. In front of the committee he accused Ballance, now captain, of coming over and saying to others: “Why are you talking to him, he’s not a sheikh, he hasn’t got oil.” Rafiq said his captain’s behaviour was “disgusting” and the atmosphere under him became “toxic”. Rafiq said matters got much worse during his second spell with the county. I started taking medication for my mental health. Towards the end of my first spell but constantly throughout I knew there was something wrong. He said: “All I wanted to do was play cricket. He reported to the MPs on the committee that “there was a lot of ‘you lot sit over there near the toilets’, the word Paki was used constantly, no one ever stamped it out”. Racist taunts started early in career at YorkshireĪzeem Rafiq told the digital, culture, media and sport select committee that from early on at Yorkshire he was subject to personal racist abuse.