Yorkshire CCC Press Statement

At their scheduled meeting last night the Board of YCCC considered a report from Geoff Cope about the disciplinary incident involving Darren Lehmann during the Australia vs Sri Lanka VB series ODI in Brisbane.

As you all know Darren Lehmann was found guilty of the offence by the ICC and is serving a 5 match ban from One Day Internationals. Darren has accepted his punishment and is very, very remorseful about the incident. He apologised personally and immediately to the Sri Lankan team, the ACB, YCCC and cricket supporters in general all over the world.

YCCC condemns such remarks made by Darren. It finds them totally unacceptable and are not required in the game of cricket, especially in Yorkshire. It condemns Darren Lehmann's language and behaviour on this occasion, for which there can never be any satisfactory excuse or explanation. There is no place for racist attitudes, behaviour or language in cricket nor in YCCC.

As to Darren's future with the Club, the Board has considered the matter in the context of his service to Yorkshire over the past 3 years, the last as Captain, and also in the context of his excellent record for good conduct and his personal qualities. In these circumstances they have concluded that his position with the club is unaffected by the incident.

Can we make it quite clear that YCCC, its Board, its Players and Darren Lehmann are not racist in any way whatsoever and if the recent incident has upset or annoyed anyone concerned to cricket in general or YCCC then we apologise to those people. When some in the national press, in the past week, interpreted both Geoff Cope's and my support of Darren Lehmann as indication that we are racist ourselves, we protest strongly. This matter was under the jurisdiction of the ICC as Darren was playing for Australia and not YCCC. We waited until our scheduled Board meeting last night to make our personal positions clear to our members and the cricket world in general as well as that of the Club.

YCCC welcomes all Asian and black players within the County and works to increase the opportunities for them to to play for YCCC at all levels.

We have the following players already within the Club.