Cricket Scotland chairman resigns amid criticism over handling of racism issue

Chairman of Cricket Scotland, Anjan Luthra, has resigned from his post following criticism of his and the organisation's efforts to tackle racism. He claims that attempts to improve the game were being undermined by lobbyists.

This comes after four members of Cricket Scotland's equality, diversity, and inclusion advisory group resigned due to a perceived lack of progress in making changes.

Luthra had been heavily criticised for his claim of "significant progress" in response to a report that uncovered 448 examples of institutional racism in July of last year.

According to Luthra, the national agency for sport, Sportscotland, was blindly following the instructions of an anti-racism lobby group.

He said, “I profoundly disagree with the way Sportscotland is operating the sport,” he said. “I believe their priority is to meet the demands of a lobby group and a handful of individuals associated with them — even if it means the wider sports and community will be negatively impacted.”

Luthra is of the opinion that if the campaign against Cricket Scotland persisted, the organisation would probably collapse.

He stepped down after facing criticism from Running Out Racism, a pressure group, which accused the board of having a tone-deaf response to charges of racism and of making unsubstantiated claims of progress.

Following a report from Plan4Sport, which accused Cricket Scotland of “institutional racism,” the pressure group criticised the board’s response.

Plan4Sport was commissioned by Sportscotland to investigate claims of racism made by two former international players, Majid Haq and Qasim Sheikh, and examined 68 individual referrals.

Its report, called Changing the Boundaries, was described by Sportscotland as “an in-depth consultation process” and resulted in the resignation of the board of Cricket Scotland.

In his six months as chairman, Luthra aimed to tackle Cricket Scotland's financial issues and eradicate racism from the organisation.

He claimed to have rescued it from insolvency, provided paid contracts for female cricketers, and made significant strides in implementing the recommendations from the report on combating racism.

But Aamer Anwar, the solicitor representing the two former international cricketers who made the initial allegations of racism, labelled Cricket Scotland as "unfit for purpose". He accused the board of responding with “empty soundbites” and failing to address the claims adequately.

According to Luthra, his reforms were aimed at rebuilding the sport for all stakeholders, but he claimed that they received little or no support from Sportscotland. He further stated that recent events had made it clear that Sportscotland and the anti-racism lobby group had little interest in rebuilding and improving Cricket Scotland.

Luthra stated that he was not willing to tolerate the situation. He expressed his professional view that the lobby group would only be content if all financial and human resources were solely dedicated to addressing the report's findings.

“If that happens, Cricket Scotland will likely cease to exist and the wider cricketing community will gravely suffer,” he said.