Yorkshire will be allowed to host international cricket in 2022 if ECB conditions are met

GEORGE DOBELL: Following a detailed presentation from the new Yorkshire chair, Lord Kamlesh Patel, the ECB board have decided to allow the club to host major matches once more

Yorkshire's suspension from hosting major matches is set to be lifted just three months after it was imposed.

The news means the club will be able to host a Test against New Zealand in June as well as an ODI against South Africa in July. They are also scheduled to host an Ashes Test in 2023.

The club was suspended from hosting international cricket in November as punishment for their failure to adequately deal with allegations of racism at the club. At the time, the ECB said that "international or major matches" would be withheld until the club "has clearly demonstrated that it can meet the standards of an international venue, ECB member and first-class county".

As a result, the club was challenged to demonstrate what action they had taken to combat racism and put in place improved governance.

Now, following a detailed presentation from the new Yorkshire chair, Lord Kamlesh Patel, the ECB board have decided to allow the club to host major matches once more. Patel is understood to have made the point to the board that, without the major matches, Yorkshire faced the genuine prospect of insolvency. If this was the case, Patel said, all the progress he had made in recent months would be endangered.

^{Headingley will host international cricket in 2022 (Oli Scarff/Getty Images)}

The club also discovered just before Christmas that, although the Equality and Human Rights Commission had concluded it was "likely that an unlawful act" had taken place at the club, it had "confidence that the new management… is taking appropriate steps". As a result, it decided not to pursue legal action.

There had been some resistance to Yorkshire hosting such games. Both officials at other counties and at least three members of the ECB board were understood to be greatly concerned that reinstating the right to host major matches might make it look as if they had not taken the issue seriously.

But there was also an understanding that Patel had made progress at the club and there was a desire not to derail it. So while there are understood to be a series of significant conditions attached to the process, the ECB decision will allow Yorkshire both to benefit from the financial windfall that hosting guarantees and recover the lost sponsorship income after 43 commercial partners left the club after the racism allegations emerged.

Those conditions are likely to include a confirmation that the governance reforms suggested by Patel are approved by the Yorkshire membership.

A recent campaign, led by former club chair Robin Smith, had sought to delay or even thwart the reforms on the basis of a minor administrative error (relating the club's right to contact its membership by email rather than post) made several years before Patel's involvement. It would now appear that, if Yorkshire members back Smith, they will be condemning themselves to a future without international cricket. 

^{Lord Kamlesh Patel made representations to the ECB board on Thursday (Oli Scarff/Getty Images)}

Speaking in the House of Commons earlier on Thursday, Julian Knight MP, the chair of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) select committee urged the ECB to grant Yorkshire the right to host the games but on the "strict proviso that [Yorkshire] members back Lord Patel's reforms and we see a dilution of the power of the [Colin] Graves Trust and that they ignore the siren calls of those who wish to maintain the shameful status quo."

The club, and the individuals who have worked for it, will still have to face an ECB investigation and disciplinary process. This will, almost certainly, involve fines and points penalties - which may or not be applicable in 2022. It remains possible that some individuals will yet face lengthy suspensions from the sport.

The news is a major coup for Patel. He was only appointed in November but, as well as overseeing the departure of around 20 members of staff from the club, has appointed a new coaching team – using blind analysis of applications to ensure ethnicity was not a factor – proposed significant governance reforms, and promised to make kit and coaching free for all children on the county pathway.

He has also gone a long way towards repairing the substantial reputational damage done to a famous club with a proud history.