Comilla’s Zaidi demands apology for ‘racist behaviour’

Comilla Victorians all-rounder and former Sussex player Ashar Zaidi has demanded an apology from Craig Overton after it emerged the promising English seamer had told him “go back to your own ... country” during a county match last season.

34-year-old Zaidi has been an integral of the Victorians in the Bangladesh Premier League Twenty20 2015. He has scored 199 runs and took 16 wickets from 10 matches as Comilla will take the field for the BPL final tomorrow at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium.

As first revealed by the Guardian, Overton, who came close to selection for England’s winter Test tour to South Africa, was reported to have made the remark to the Pakistan-born batsman by both the umpire Alex Wharf and the non-striking batsman Michael Yardy during Somerset’s four-day Division One match at Sussex in September.

Describing the incident, Zaidi, who did not hear the remark at the time, told the Telegraph: “When I heard what had happened [afterwards] I was fuming especially as that guy didn’t have the decency to come and apologise. At the next day’s play he didn’t look me in the eye and didn’t warm up with the rest of his team. He owes me an apology. I’ve played all over England and never experienced such racist behaviour. I’m not in a position to say if he was treated leniently, but I was very surprised. What he said was too much. It was surprising also as he played alongside Abdur Rehman at Somerset.”

Yorkshire’s head coach, Jason Gillespie, told the Guardian: “As a club we are not commenting but speaking personally, I would be surprised if the ECB didn’t look into this a bit further.”

Acting on the evidence from Yardy and Wharf, the ECB’s independent disciplinary panel controversially decided on a level one punishment for abusive language – rather than a level three for abuse related to “race or national origin”. Overton incurred an automatic two-match ban because of two previous minor offences on his record.