Graves, 74, made his fortune because the founding father of the Costcutter grocery store chain, and stepped in to rescue Yorkshire from chapter in 2002. He served as chair between 2012 and 2015 earlier than shifting onto a five-year time period as ECB chair.
Now, he has advised the Yorkshire Put up that he’s able to “journey to the rescue” once more, with the membership anticipated to report losses of as much as £3 million of their subsequent accounts, within the wake of the racism scandal that gripped Yorkshire final 12 months and led to the suspension of worldwide internet hosting rights and the withdrawal of a raft of sponsors.
Nonetheless, his candidacy is bound to be divisive, not least as a result of the membership nonetheless owes some £16 million to the Graves Household Belief, as a consequence of his 2002 bailout. Whereas Graves himself is not instantly related to that debt, the hyperlink stays a contentious one, with Roger Hutton, Lord Patel’s predecessor as chair, claiming that the Belief had been a roadblock to reform on the membership within the wake of Azeem Rafiq’s claims of institutional racism, particularly when vetoing of the removing of two board members.
“The membership is aware of my views,” Graves advised the Put up. “If I come again, it will likely be on my phrases. I will work with the board. However I will run it how I wish to run it and I do know I can flip it round in three years principally.
“It is as much as the membership. I do know I can carry to the desk what Yorkshire need at this cut-off date, which is therapeutic all the injuries, getting the members again on aspect to being a members’ membership, working with the board to get them in the appropriate place going ahead and to type out the monetary state of affairs that they are .”
Yorkshire’s newest accounts confer with a “a cloth uncertainty” over the membership’s “capability to proceed as a going concern”, with their whole money owed believed to be within the area of £20 million. The servicing of those money owed has reportedly been hindered by rising rates of interest, whereas there’s nonetheless the matter of the excellent court docket case involving the previous physiotherapist Wayne Morton and different workers who had been sacked by Lord Patel in December 2021 in response to the racism allegations.
On the enjoying aspect, Yorkshire suffered relegation on the ultimate day of the 2022 season and should play second division cricket for the primary time in additional than a decade.
A Yorkshire spokesperson added: “Lord Patel will step down as chair of Yorkshire County Cricket Membership on the subsequent AGM. A brand new chair will likely be appointed following a radical, truthful and strong recruitment course of, to make sure that the appropriate particular person is in place and proceed the numerous progress which the membership has made in his tenure.”
Different names reportedly within the body to exchange Lord Patel embody Dame Tanni Gray-Thompson, the previous Paralympic athlete who joined the board as a non-executive director final 12 months, and in addition serves as a crossbench peer within the Home of Lords.
