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Players from Pontymister and Crosskeys Cricket Club were ordered off the field by their captain who feared for their safety after they were allegedly racially abused by Crumlin players.

The game, on Saturday, August 6, was an intense division three clash in the South East Wales Cricket League. Pontymister and Crosskeys were chasing a staggering 327 set by home side Crumlin.

This was before Pontymister and Crosskeys first team captain Chris Jones took his players off the pitch after “fearing for their safety”.

Caerphilly Observer understands the allegations relate to verbal and physical abuse that was racially-motivated.

Crumlin flatly deny the allegations, but will have to appear at a disciplinary hearing by August 13.

A spokesperson from Cricket Wales said it had been made aware of the incident.

They said: “The competition provider responsible for the fixture are dealing with the incident, per their constitution and investigation / disciplinary process. It would be inappropriate to speculate or comment further until this process has completed.”

Caerphilly Observer contacted the South East Wales Cricket League for further comment.

Is racism a problem in Welsh Cricket?

Before we learned of the recently abandoned local match, Caerphilly Observer was already investigating the issue of racism in Welsh cricket.

A recent independent investigation into Cricket Scotland found 448 examples of institutional racism, so we asked the English Cricket Board (ECB) to disclose how many reports of racism it had received from south Wales and how it dealt with them.

The report in Scotland conducted by Plan4Sport – a sports disciplinary company – forced the resignation of the entire Scottish cricket board, who were accused of “enabling a culture of racially aggravated micro-aggressions to develop”.

With ethnic minority participation in Welsh cricket twice the national average at 10.17%, Caerphilly Observer asked the ECB if this increased diversity meant increased discrimination reports.

In response to this question, the ECB provided a list of ‘game-wide action plans’ outlining their commitment to “tackle all forms of discrimination and drive inclusivity in the game”.

These include measures such as a “full scale review into the detection, enforcements, and sanctions against discriminatory and abusive crowd behaviour”, according to the ECB’s annual report.

However, when pushed again to release the number of reports received, the ECB refused, saying they “don’t have publicly available stats”. When asked if they would reveal these stats privately, they also declined.

They did however add that the ECB has set up the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC) who are “independently looking at the issue of discrimination across the sport in England and Wales, and they have run two calls for evidence of people’s lived experiences of cricket.”

They are set to report later this year.

In their initial report, the ICEC said they received a “staggering response to their call for evidence”.

If any players or coaches at any cricket club wish to speak to Caerphilly Observer in confidence about their experiences of racism, they can do so by emailing tom@caerphilly.observer or calling 02921 250855.