Cindy Butts hits back after Ian Botham labels ICEC report "nonsense"

GEORGE DOBELL: Butts, chair of the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket which produced the report, said Botham was invited to contribute and claimed his hostility to the report showed the need for anonymity

Cindy Butts has hit back at Lord Botham after he claimed the Equity report was "nonsense".

Butts, the chair of the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket which produced the report, has written to The Times refuting both Botham's version of events and his views about the value of the report's conclusions.

In particular, Butts has pointed out that Botham was given two opportunities to contribute to the report and provided details of several people he knew who had contributed.

Botham had previously claimed that he was not invited to contribute and didn't know anyone who had done so.

"I read bits of the report and I just threw it down on the floor in the end because in my eyes, it's a nonsense," Botham told Simon Jordan's Up Front podcast. "It was a complete and utter waste of money that could have been well spent on other things within the game.

^{ICEC chair Cindy Butts [supplied]}

"No one's interviewed me, no one asked me for my thoughts on it. I don't know of anyone that was asked and interviewed before this report was put together, so on what grounds and on whose say has it been put together?"

But Butts has insisted this was not so.

"Botham said he was not asked for his opinion," he letter states. "In fact, he was given two chances. We wrote to him on April 11, 2022, inviting him to speak to us, but received no reply. He was also offered an evidence session through the County Cricket Board chairs equality, diversity and inclusion group in September last year. This was declined by the group which said it did not feel it needed further opportunities to provide evidence.

"Botham also said he did not know anyone who was asked to contribute, but Durham County Cricket Club, of which he is chairman, gave evidence and promoted our survey. Ben Stokes, Joe Root, Eoin Morgan and Heather Knight all contributed, as did former players such as Devon Malcolm, David Lawrence, Mark Alleyne and Owais Shah."

Butts also refuted Botham's suggestion that the anonymity of witnesses in the report in some way undermined its credibility. "I thought a lot of it was heavily loaded and when you read through it everything is anonymous; who is anonymous?" Botham said. "Introduce me to Mr and Mrs Anonymous."

But Butts claimed that Botham's hostility to the report showed the need for that anonymity.

^{Botham is currently the chair of Durham [Ian Horrocks/Getty Images]}

"Botham's rubbishing of our report demonstrates the need for the anonymity he criticised, and will not encourage victims to make their experiences known," Butts wrote. "Our report and its recommendations have been welcomed by many in the game and we are encouraged by that response, in contrast to the views of outliers, however illustrious they may be."

The report took two years to complete and featured the experience of more than 4,000 respondents. Half of them said they had experienced discrimination in cricket in the past five years.

Botham also suggested that those implicated in the Yorkshire racism scandal had not had the opportunity to clear their names and "no one has interviewed them".

At the CDC hearings into the matter, however, it was established that all involved had been contacted by the ECB and invited to interviews.