Michael Vaughan offers to bear Adil Rashid’s travel expenses for racism hearing

Former England star Michael Vaughan has offered to bear the travel expenses of Adil Rashid to enable the leg-spinner to appear for the upcoming hearing of Yorkshire’s racism scandal.

Vaughan chose to defend himself against the allegation of racism made by former Yorkshire player Azeem Rafiq while five other individuals charged with racism have opted out of the hearing.

Rafiq accused Vaughan of telling him and other Asian-origin players in 2009 that there were "too many of you lot, we need to do something about it". Rashid is a key witness to the alleged incident.

The Cricket Discipline Commission is scheduled to conduct the hearing from March 1 to 9 but Rashid who is part of England’s squads for one-dayers and T20 internationals will be in Bangladesh for the bilateral white-ball series starting on March 1.

The England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) said Rashid could appear for the hearing via video link instead of being physically present as flying back from Bangladesh for the purpose would be expensive, according to a Telegraph report.

However, Vaughan’s lawyers want to cross-examine Rashid in person as their client has flatly denied the claims against him.

Former Yorkshire player and bowling coach Richard Pyrah said he would not attend the hearing as did Andrew Gale, Matthew Hoggard, Tim Bresnan and John Blain. Gary Ballance who now plays for Zimbabwe has admitted to charges against him, meaning he is not required to attend the proceedings.

However, Vaughan has remained defiant, choosing to defend his reputation during the hearing.

Referring to Yorkshire’s admission to charges related to "conduct which may be prejudicial to the interests of cricket and/or may bring the ECB and/or the game of cricket into disrepute", the club's co-chair Lord Kamlesh Patel said it was an “important step forward” for the club as part of its “journey to learn from the past.”

“It has been clear that we needed to accept and take accountability as a club for the cultural issues which allowed racist and discriminatory behaviour to go unchallenged”, Lord Patel said in a statement.