Ingleton Cricket Club in Carnforth is one of the more picturesque venues in Yorkshire club cricket
From the moment Azeem Rafiq first spoke publicly about racism at Yorkshire to this magazine in 2020, there have been revelations, headlines and soul-searching. Inevitably the focus has been on the county club. But, as this is ultimately about our society, it certainly affects non-professional cricket too. While significant steps continue to be made, there is so much still to do when it comes to equity, diversity and inclusion in our game. It would be easy to distil Yorkshire cricket into a tainted, unedifying mess, but it’s more complex than that and there are many reasons to marvel at the game here.
Part of that complexity is down to sheer numbers. There are over 800 recreational cricket clubs spread across Yorkshire, each of them playing weekly, equating to around 125,000 players. And while there are fewer leagues than a decade ago, Premier Leagues have swollen in size and new clubs like Starbeck in North Yorkshire are forming, while the biggest growth is in women’s and girls’ cricket, with 160 Yorkshire clubs now boasting 300 female teams.